The One
by SilverShortyyy
Summary: Canon Divergence. Jeanine Matthews was never sentimental about things, but she knew there would be an exception. She only looked at the girl as the perfect test subject, the perfect specimen, and the girl was supposed to be just that. But beyond that, she knew there had always been something else entirely.
1. Chapter 1

_"I really thought you were the one."_

Jeanine Matthews was never sentimental about things, but she knew there would be an exception. She only looked at the girl as the perfect test subject, the perfect specimen, and the girl was supposed to be just that. But beyond it all, she knew there had always been something else entirely.

No other Divergent could pass all five sims. No other Divergent could be brave, selfless, intelligent, peaceful, and honest all at the same time. No other _person_ could have endured through so much, but she knew that wasn't all.

 _"We'll just have to resume our search."_

This couldn't have been it. This couldn't really be happening.

Beatrice Prior was the perfect test subject, brave and selfless and intelligent all at the same time, and even honest or peaceful if she tried hard enough. Jeanine knew it more than anyone; she had seen it with her own two eyes.

She had seen the girl fight the urge to fight, she had seen the girl give it all up just for the truth to be set free.

Beatrice Prior was the perfect test subject, but she knew that wasn't it.

She knew that wasn't the only reason she felt this way. She knew that wasn't the only reason why she felt grief at the loss of the girl. She had watched Beatrice Prior grow up, and even when Beatrice was under that truth serum in Candor, Jeanine saw it. She was always watching the girl. If not for the reason of caution, or observation, then it would have been because she did take a liking to the girl.

How could she not? Wasn't that how she, herself, was once?

Well, no. Jeanine had never been daring, or peaceful to the point that she would despise conflict even when it is obviously necessary. She was only honest when she saw fit, whenever it came to matters that were rather light and transparent, and she was only ever selfless when she knew it would benefit her. She was only ever selfless if she would be giving up herself - her sanity, her humanity, and the awful thing she had to possess called human nature - for the sake of knowledge, and now, power.

The one definite thing she ever could have been was curious. Endlessly curious, and relentless in her pursuit of knowledge.

She was Erudite through and through, nothing more, nothing less.

And yet, why would she take a liking to a girl from Abnegation, a Divergent nonetheless?

She had thought her emotions gave way long ago, when she had given it up for more knowledge to quench her curiosity and search for answers. Even when she started to observe the daughter of Andrew Prior, she had thought that her emotions, if not long gone, were repressed enough to be capable only of the slightest feeling.

But she was wrong. And she had known for a long time, but Jeanine Matthews hated to be wrong.

Beatrice Prior was one of a kind; she was special. Jeanine has always known that, even when she first saw the baby in the picture of her registration file.

The girl had always fascinated her in an obsessing way. If she was not caught up with her research on Divergents, Beatrice Prior drove her insane with interest. The girl intrigued her so much, that she could not sleep unless she knew the girl was asleep too. She would wake up in the middle of the night when she heard the faintest sobs of a nightmare-shaken girl, and she could not get a wink of sleep until she knew the girl had been comforted, until she knew Beatrice was rocked back to sleep.

For years she had told herself it was only because the child's waking moments were the perfect time for observation, but she knew it was something else entirely.

On Beatrice's first day of school, she had wished she was the teacher who taught the girl instead. Clearly she would have been better at educating the girl, especially when Beatrice was obviously ahead of everyone else in her class. (Luckily, the girl inherited her father's intelligence.) Jeanine told herself it was only because the girl would have been more of an outstanding specimen to observe if Beatrice was educated much more highly, but she knew it was something else entirely.

And the days went on, Beatrice growing up and Jeanine watching her every moment she could, whenever no one was looking.

Those were the only moments the woman felt like she was not the leader of the Erudite faction, nor a supposedly emotionless human being. Those were the only moments when she would let herself smile, or feel anything at all, for she knew Beatrice Prior was not just a test subject anymore, but the girl had progressed into becoming more than that to her.

The girl became irreplaceable as time crept on. Whether it had been because of her value as a pure, one hundred percent Divergent that became the best subject for opening the box Andrew and Natalie Prior have been keeping, or because of something else, Beatrice Prior was not someone who could be replaced by another being.

And that was why Jeanine was struck with frustration and annoyance when the girl couldn't be brought back, when the girl just hung there unmoving.

She couldn't bear it. It was just a joke, wasn't it? A cruel, heartless, cold, and bitter joke.

Jeanine had to see for herself if this was really the truth. So she stepped in the chamber, and there in front of her was the body of Beatrice Prior.

And finally, after so long, she gave in to herself.

 _"I really thought you were the one."_

And maybe she was. Besides, no one else had ever broken through her like this, not even Andrew Prior or Evelyn Johnson. No one else had ever brought out this side of her, and at times she couldn't even believe this was still her.

Everything was quiet. No one dared make a sound.

Caleb Prior had exited the observation room a few seconds ago, surely to get inside the testing chamber to at least get a glimpse of his sister without having a large pane of glass standing between them. Peter, on the other hand, should be off with the other guards to get the mobile bed for the girl's dead body.

But whether or not anyone was watching, she didn't even care, because in that moment, she felt as if her heart was ripped out of her chest, and after years of denial, she had finally gotten enough courage to admit it.

 _I love her. I love Beatrice Prior._

She closed her eyes, and beyond the residual light that was captured behind her eye lids, she could see everything. She could see Beatrice's first steps, her smile, her hypnotizing blue gaze amidst the darkness of the night. She could hear her first words, her laughter, her late night sobs and cries. She could remember the worry when Beatrice had nightmares, how she wished she had been Natalie, how she had wished it was her instead that calmed Beatrice down. How she had wished she could have been the one to sleep with Beatrice cuddled into her, revelling in her warmth and falling asleep beside her with a smile.

She let the feeling consume her, before she knew it would be too late. Happiness, knowing Beatrice could now walk on her own. Sadness, knowing Beatrice felt chained and caged in a faction where her freedom was taken away from her. Worry, knowing Beatrice's fever was constantly rising ever since she came home. Agitated, knowing that Beatrice could not have gotten that part in the outreach program for the Factionless just because the other girl was cheerier than her. Ecstatic, knowing that Beatrice was finally going to choose a faction and that the girl would finally be able to find where she belongs.

Restless, knowing that she could possibly choose Erudite. Disappointed, seeing the girl's blood drop not in the bowl of water, but in the bowl of burning coal. Stupid, thinking that she should've known in the first place. Besides, Beatrice would have never been free in Erudite.

But above all, she felt love. Love, but she knew no reason.

And as the years flashed behind her closed eye lids and the emotions swallowed her whole, a tear dropped down to the white floor beneath her feet.

All these years, and she was never able to say it. All those times she came across the girl, but she was too stupid to have ever given into it.

 _Human nature is the enemy._ But sometimes, it could benefit the person to give in to the enemy, even just for a fraction of time.

She lowered her head and pressed a kiss on the cool forehead of the girl that hung limp in front of her.

"Goodbye, Beatrice," she said as she opened her eyes. "I love you."

She could have sworn she saw the girl's chest heave, and those lips part just enough for her to breathe. But even after a few seconds, the girl didn't open her eyes.

Beatrice Prior was gone now, and Jeanine Matthews had lost the one.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry for the wait! This is especially dedicated to Speisla Cartoon Cartoon and LittlePenguin93 because I didn't actually think of making this, but I like making people happy, so here it is!**

* * *

 _"Ms. Matthews?"_

She couldn't bear to be seen like this. She's supposed to be cold and bitter, emotionless. But here she is, shedding tears for a girl that is supposed to be just a test subject, a girl that is supposed to be just another Divergent.

She looks away from them, to the tiles at her far left that don't reflect Beatrice, because they can't see her like this, and seeing Beatrice limp will only make things worse. So she looks away, and heaven forbid her voice sounds like she actually cried.

Jeanine Matthews feels nothing. She doesn't cry.

"Yes?"

"We will have to dispose of the body now."

Yes. The sooner Beatrice's body goes, the sooner this pain will be over. But after years and years and years of keeping this all inside, the pain that devours her feels all too familiar, all too good to be thrown away. And besides, could she really even get rid of the body of Beatrice Prior? Or Tris, as the girl liked being called? She had to get rid of it. There are no other options.

"Keep it preserved for further examination on her body."

"Yes, Ms. Matthews."

She feels herself stand up and walk away, and the mask is on again, and her tears are gone, but all the while she stares at the floor trying to forget the fact that Beatrice is gone, dead, and it's all her fault.

She tells herself it's Natalie and Andrew's fault, because they were the ones who kept the box, because they were the ones who couldn't just have hidden it from the rest of humanity so she would never have been able to find it, because they couldn't have brought it with them to death. Yes, it's their fault.

Because Jeanine Matthews did nothing wrong. All she did was try to unlock that god forsaken box with a hundred percent Divergent that just happened to be Beatrice Prior, and it seems like even Beatrice couldn't open the box. She'll just have to keep looking, and maybe that boy could come in handy now.

Yes, none of this is her fault, and her tears are just of anger. Because they were so close, just one more faction close, and that box would finally be unlocked.

But deep inside, she knows the truth she tends to keep from herself, because the truth is she's in pain, she's hurting, and she couldn't bear the thought of Beatrice Prior's death to have been caused by her.

* * *

It's soft lips. Soft, warm lips that reminds her of when she was still a little kid, when mom used to kiss her good night.

Soft, warm, gentle lips that reminds her of strength and Dauntless and Abnegation, and the Tobias that would hold her through the night to protect her from whatever wanted to kill her.

Soft, warm, gentle, heavenly lips that reminds her of everything crumbling around her, everything shattering into a chaotic mix of what looked more like glass than anything, and it suddenly struck her that she's probably dead. And that whatever it is she felt, it isn't real.

It's nothing but an illusion after death. If that even exists.

If she really is dead, though, then she guesses she's successful (or maybe not) in her mission to save the Dauntless. Hopefully, the last of her hazy memories aren't the last of her moments when she was awake and alive because she needs to have finished that Amity sim and aced it, because if she didn't, well then why isn't she beating someone up to get back to living again? If she died without fulfilling Jeanine's twisted wishes, then she died in vain. Just great.

 _"Goodbye, Beatrice,"_ the voice is soft, gentle, and sweet like honey, but it wasn't her mother's voice, or Tobias' voice, or her father's voice. It's a voice that comes from a woman she can only remember as cold and more machine than human, with watery gray eyes. It's a voice that breathes on her skin, sending shivers throughout her body. _"I love you."_

It's too heartfelt. She must never have had a chance to go to heaven after all.

Jeanine Matthews would never say that. Maybe she's being tortured this way.

But the voice sounds all too real and she still feels the wires piercing her skin and her clothes sticking to her like a second skin (why is she this sweaty) and the voices from a few meters away that speak like Jeanine's guards would speak.

The Dauntless that turned to Erudite guards? Probably.

Still, it all sounds too real to deny.

 _"Ms. Matthews?"_

 _"Yes?"_ Suddenly, all the warmth is gone, and all that's left is authority and power. But the regular edge is gone, and Tris wonders why that would happen. Jeanine would never speak without even just a tiny bit of bite in her voice, because why would she? She gets her power from making people fear her, and obviously she could've never made people fear her if she didn't threaten them, even just a little bit. But now, the venom that's supposed to be there is gone, and Tris couldn't help but wonder why.

 _"We will have to dispose of the body now."_

If this is real, why isn't she dead yet?

If this isn't real, why would they still need to dispose of her body? They could just throw it in the eternal inferno or whatever that's supposed to be and watch her writhe in the flames while she burns agonizingly slowly for the rest of eternity. So, what, is being incinerated better torture? Tris honestly didn't even care. She just wants to know if she had done what she came to Erudite for or not, and if no one would give her an answer to that, at least help her differentiate reality from death.

What's so hard about that?

 _"Keep it preserved for further examination on her body."_

Okay, well maybe whatever examinations Erudite would pull off would be better torture for a useless, dying soul like her. But if this is real, why does Jeanine sound like she didn't say what she said because she wants to do research on Tris' body? Why did it sound like Jeanine means something else entirely?

 _"Yes, Ms. Matthews."_

But of course, whoever feels like something is off would probably never mind it because they're probably scared of Jeanine, but as Tris feels her body being brought down from the wires and lied down on what feels like a bed, she wonders if anyone even wants to question how off Jeanine sounds.

But everything feels a little too cold and she can't even here anything anymore because of how cold she feels. It's like she's been put in a freezer, and the mattress beneath her feels more like ice than cotton.

Then she remembers the warmth of those lips on her forehead, so warm and so soft, such contrast to the bitter cold that seems to want to eat her alive. Maybe, in this reality, Jeanine Matthews might not be so bad after all.

Suddenly, having whatever this is as a reality didn't seem as bad as Tris thought it would be.

Those were soft, warm, gentle lips that touched her forehead just a few minutes ago, and it's already like they're Tris' life support, even if a part of her knows that those lips belong to none other than Jeanine Matthews.

* * *

What had Tris been thinking? What had he been thinking when she sneaked off to Erudite? Why was he even asleep?

He didn't even know what to think. He doubts he was even thinking or even conscious when she slipped off into the night, bound for Erudite. And now, there is absolutely nothing he could do, other than just hope she's okay.

But this place being Erudite? Okay is a long shot. If anything, he just hopes she's alive.

He sits in his cell facing the glass door, waiting on her return because of course they'd let her sleep. Jeanine isn't stupid enough to overstress her test subject to the point of death. Besides, Tris is like gold among the Divergents. She's the best one of them all, and with that kind of value, Jeanine would obviously not want to lose such an important thing.

To be honest, he didn't even know the difference between an hour and a minute now. It's both long and lengthy, and he didn't even care if it takes a whole day to wait for Tris.

He just wants to see her, even just through this glass door.

Even just for a moment. To see her alive and breathing, and he could almost see it happening, and it's like seeing her isn't enough anymore, with those bright eyes and pale pink lips that really need punishing. She should have never left the compound; they would've found another way around it. She's supposed to be safe in his arms, and if only this is all a sim, it would be so easy to just smash open the door and she'd be in his arms again.

But she never passed by his cell that day in a desperate attempt to get through the door and hold him close, or passed his cell alive and breathing.

No, she passes in a mobile bed, pure white and blinding in all its medical glory, her eyes close, her chest level. She isn't alive. She isn't breathing. And heaven forbid they're going to play around with her with their Erudite examinations, and if they are, so help him.

He didn't even care if he's currently executing his glass door, or if he's already gone through, or if his fist really did collide with a helmet or a head (because it collided with something hard, that's all he knows). All he cares about is getting to Tris, because she can't be dead, she can't be gone, not now, not like this.

And if Tris really is gone, he had to at least be able to feel her again, even just to touch her face one last time, to kiss her for the last time. Just one more time, one last time, before they take her away from him forever, before she's taken for real and there won't be anything left.

"LET ME NEAR HER! JUST ONE LAST TIME OR I SWEAR YOU WILL GO DOWN TO HELL WITH ME, YOU ERUDITE BA-"

A sharp object pierces the flesh in his neck, then a liquid as cold as those bitter cold walls is injected into him. Four feels his eyelids grow heavy, and he swears on everything existing in this horrid world that he isn't going to get knocked out, but soon enough, all he sees is darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

**So... I do not own the song Let Her Go, because it belongs to Passenger. I just love that song too much and found it applicable to this so... Yeah. Anyway, this chapter is dedicated to all my reviewers especially guest reviewer Kiara.**

 **Without further ado, The One: Chapter Three.**

* * *

When the light comes back around, all Four sees is the dark gray dullness of his cell walls. It's so dark, and it's probably night time now, but these parts of Erudite had no windows, so for all he knows the skies could be red and he'll have no clue.

Then, he regains his feeling and feels himself slumped at the foot of his bed, back against another wall. He tries to move, but he can't. He can't, and he thinks it might either be paralysis or a severe numbness from staying in this position for too long.

Either way, his movement is restricted as of now, and chains have nothing to do with it.

Then he regains his hearing. He didn't think he lost it at first, until his ears are bombarded by a painful buzzing noise, and a distant whisper of a voice so familiar, yet so foreign.

That person is supposed to be cold, but... She isn't.

He hears it from beyond his walls, from the other side, and there seems to be nothing and no one else in the other room so he just listens, because as much as this situation feels a little bizarre, he's still suspicious.

" _Well you only need the light when it's burning low_

 _Only miss the sun when it starts to snow_

 _Only know you love her when you let her go_

 _Only know you've been high when you're feeling low_

 _Only hate the road when you're missing home_

 _Only know you love her when you let her go_

 _And you let her go._ "

Four's cell door opens and Peter enters. It seems like Four's body is still numb; he still can't move.

"I see you've heard Jeanine." Peter tries to sound nonchalant, but Four can hear a somber tone slip through. Peter's eyes are cast down on the ground, and in them, Four can see a hint of something, but he refuses to believe what it is. Still, Peter's eyes are glassy, but Four tells himself it's because Peter's sleepy, and he probably hasn't had a blink of sleep in a while.

Yeah, that's it. Nothing special.

"Yeah." The soft, gentle tones filter through the walls and echo, though muffled, in the cold gray walls that comprise of Four's cell. Peter stands unmoving by the door, hands in his pockets and head still bowed down. Outside, the lights reflect off the white floors, and suddenly the place looks more empty and hollow than it's supposed to be. Suddenly, it's like the day when Tris' body came rolling through that hallway, just a foot out of reach, was a whole life ago.

Four shakes his head, or at least tries to, and behind the wall he leans on, he hears the voice of Jeanine Matthews, singing with such gentleness and loneliness and regret, with so much emotion that he nearly couldn't believe it.

"So, how long was I out?"

"About three days." The answer is instantaneous. Less than a breath to wait.

Peter's quiet again. His head still down, the hall still hollow. Besides from the sweet yet sad sound of Jeanine's song, and the steady breathing of his and Peter's, nothing could be heard from where they are.

"How about Jeanine?"

"Huh?"

"Is this the first time... She's done this?" Peter's looking up now, as if the mention of simply Jeanine's singing is enough to get him. Then again, it's what got to him, and simply that made something deep inside of Four start nagging at him from the back of his head. _Something's going on_ , it tells him, over and over again, and it takes him all he's got to keep himself from forcing his body to stay still.

Peter clears his throat, and again, he looks away. His eyes are hidden from view now, so Four can't see them. Still, behind Four and the wall he's leaning on, Jeanine's voice goes on, in all of its bittersweet loneliness.

"No." A pause, and Peter faces him again, but Peter's bowing his head down again, lower this time, and Four can't see his eyes anymore. "It's, like, the second time she's done this."

Second time?

"When was the first time?"

Pause.

And in the other room, Jeanine's still singing, but it sounds like her voice catches in her throat, and the words are enough to bother Four.

" _Everything you touch surely dies."_

The silhouette of a young girl appears in his mind, in a gray dress with her braided brown hair flying behind her, bright blue eyes and an even brighter smile.

No, he tells himself. Not now when he already forgot. Not now when everything about that is already gone, erased, nearly oblivion. And he thinks nearly, because he still remembers. After all this time, when he thought it would be over.

He remembers.

It fills him with disdain.

Peter's voice speaks again. Still, Peter's bowed down, eyes cast down with seemingly no will to ever lift, or at least take a look at Four.

"Yesterday." Four thinks he hears a cut in Peter's voice, as if there's more, as if he's holding back, as if it's not simply and just 'yesterday'.

But he doesn't bother about it. He would, and he wants to, but maybe it's his state of partial paralysis or it's something else that's pulling him back, and it's too strong to fight against, though when he really thinks about it, he doesn't even have any thoughts about how he'll get that information out from Peter.

But he just doesn't bother about it.

Without another word, Peter leaves the room and the glass door closes behind them, and again Four's trapped in, and it feels like the walls are closing in but it feels like warmth and Tris' arms too. He stares out the door where Peter walks to the left, out the hall and probably into the rest of the building, and there doesn't seem to be another body there except his, but Jeanine's voice echoes like a sad melody and he feels the lingering presence of Erudite's leader behind his wall, as well as Tris' body that's lifeless, gone, dead.

It takes him all his strength to keep from remembering that girl that used to have such a bright smile, and instead tries to sleep.

Jeanine's voice is like a lullaby now, soft and gentle but sad and lonely, grieving with a heart filled to the brim with regret. It rocks him to sleep even in his slumped position, and soon his eye lids droop close and the darkness of sleep engulfs him, with the last words of Jeanine's song echoing in his last moments of consciousness.

" _You let her go."_

He falls asleep to the cruel memory of a young girl in a gray dress, her braided brown hair flying behind her with her eyes as bright as the blue sky, her smile even brighter than the shining sun.

 _You let her go._

* * *

Her back skids down against a wall. Her clothes are still as they were yesterday. Still prim, still proper, still the clothes of the leader of Erudite.

Or is it former leader? Either way, she didn't have the heart to care right now.

Oh the irony, of how she used to only see the power and leadership, of how it was the only thing she ever cared about, but now she's doing nothing but throwing it away. All because of someone she should want to kill.

Truth be told, she would never kill Beatrice.

But the moment she found out Beatrice was Divergent, back then when she received the results of the Aptitude test, she convinced herself that Divergents are a threat, and just like any threat or virus, they must be eliminated; they must be killed. So far, Beatrice Prior was the one she wanted to eliminate the most.

Or at least, that's what she told herself.

So, as time went by, Beatrice Prior became her biggest mission. Examine the girl, observe the girl, experiment on the girl, and use her as the test subject she was built perfectly to be. Soon, she forgot about who she is and how she's mortal, how she's human, and knew only one thing: Divergents. Specifically, Beatrice Prior.

She was lost in her own storm of thoughts and ideals, and she thought it to be good that it made her leave her humanity behind. Human nature is the enemy, isn't it?

Events passed and tragedies happened, and however the hell she got herself trapped like this, she didn't even bother to think about. As much as she lost herself once before, nothing's going to distract her now, and just like how storms and tornadoes and everything organic and just nature, human nature will keep coming back; it will always be there. And now that nothing's keeping her humanity away from devouring her, there's nothing she can do to fight back.

This battle is something she lost, just like her battle with Evelyn Johnson.

And now she's stuck in Beatrice Prior's jail cell, with nothing to do other than to stare at the lifeless body of the girl she used for her cruel experiments, the girl she will admit to love now.

She was so blind, so dumb. How did she not see reality and truth as it is?

But that's done, that's over, and there's nothing she can do about it anymore.

So Jeanine just leans her head back and closes her eyes, and thinks that maybe everything could just be okay, if and only if she closes her eyes.

How she wishes she could be wherever Beatrice is right now.

* * *

It's a song that she remembers someone used to sing. Maybe a neighbor, or her mother, but she remembers hearing it once. A sad melody, a gentle song, a soothing tune with a lonely heart.

She remembers she heard it before, but she couldn't believe she's hearing it now.

" _Staring at the ceiling in the dark_

 _Same old empty feeling in your heart_

 _Because love comes slow and it goes so fast._ "

It's a soft voice, a sweet voice, and it's a voice she remembers to be void of emotion, as if it's a voice from a program, or a sim, or a machine.

But the voice she hears now is broken, is lonely, is filled with regret. The voice she hears now couldn't be the person she used to know, and as much as she knows, Jeanine Matthews is not lonely. She is heartless and void of emotion and more machine than human.

But this? This is a bittersweet melody.

" _Well you see her when you fall asleep_

 _But never to touch and never to keep_

 _Because you loved her too much_

 _And you dived too deep._ "

It's sad, it's gentle, it's everything she remembers the song to be. Except this sounds sweeter in the loneliest way, like freedom and loss, like love and the 'almosts' she used to read from a few books that her mom used to keep. Not that her mom ever knew she even touched those.

But it's Jeanine Matthews, this is Jeanine Matthews, and Jeanine doesn't sing, or feel, or love.

That's not Jeanine.

" _And you let her go._ "

It couldn't be. But Tris hates how her heart knows the 'truth', and the truth is wrong and it couldn't be more than a lie, but the way she feels those warm lips against her forehead is just too sad, too lonely, too broken for it all to be a lie.

She misses the warmth as soon as it leaves, but a cold drop of a liquid replaces it, plopping down on her cheek and skidding down to what she thinks is the thin mattress of her cell bed.

The click-clack of heels moves away from her, and soon she hears a sigh, and the singing is gone but the sadness is still there. She can't see beyond the darkness she seems to be trapped in, but she swears she can see a head of platinum blonde hair against a dull gray wall, and before watery gray eyes can hide beneath those eyelids, two more tears escape, and Tris hopes she's wrong because this is weird, but it feels more real than anything else.

She sees Jeanine Matthews exhale one more time before the watery gray eyes disappear under those eyelids and the tears come stronger, and she nearly wants to reach out and wipe them away.

Nearly. Just nearly. But as much as she wants to feel hate towards the woman, she thinks she's lost that towards Jeanine Matthews.

Tris can hear Jeanine's heart breaking even if she's unconscious on the bed. The cracking sounds so clear, and Tris almost accepts that Jeanine's changed.

But she'll never be able to accept it if Jeanine's crying for her. Or because of her. Because why would Jeanine Matthews ever care about her, a Divergent, Beatrice Prior?

* * *

 **Let me know what you think, and I apologize in advance if I take a long time before updating again. But of course, thank you for reading! :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**So, here's the next one! Sorry it took a little long, but here it is! The One: Chapter 4.**

* * *

She hears a release of air, like a door to an Erudite cell opening.

"Good morning, Jeanine. How are you doing?" It's a familiar voice. She thinks it's Tobias' mother, but she could be wrong. So, she just keeps listening.

"Quite alright, if I must say something." It's Jeanine again. But her voice holds no edge; it's dull, and it comes from somewhere far in the room.

Did Jeanine actually sleep here, in her cell?

There's a short pause and tension in the room. Tris listens a little harder – something she's gotten used to for the past three days – and she thinks that it's probably only Jeanine and the woman who sounds like Tobias' mother in the room. She hears no one else breathing, and she thinks she heard the door close a few seconds ago.

"Why are you even keeping a dead body here, Jeanine?" Is she really dead, and is this torture, or is she paralyzed with no heartbeat or need to breathe, eat, or do what normal people do? Tris isn't sure, and by the sound of the woman who sounds like Tobias' mother's voice, Tris hopes she's just being tortured.

It'd be worse to actually feel things trying to tear her arms apart, cutting up her flesh and yanking her guts out while blades shred everything in her mouth. _And_ know that she's actually just not dead.

Haha, that would be really funny.

Tris guesses the old Jeanine might actually want that.

"Are you _grieving_?" Either the woman noticed something that would indicate that, or she's smart. Probably came from Erudite.

This Jeanine, though, would never want her dead. Tris is Erudite enough to have at least guessed that.

"Jeanine... Who _is_ she to you? She's a Divergent, I thought you hated Divergents." The impatient steps of the woman who sounds like Tobias' mother move away from Tris, and Tris guesses she's moving toward Jeanine.

They're probably thinking the same thing, she and that woman: this isn't Jeanine Matthews, or at least the Jeanine everyone knows. Jeanine feels nothing, let alone grieves a Divergent, and Beatrice Prior of all people. So what's going on?

But something didn't make sense; if that woman didn't put Jeanine in here, then does that mean Jeanine did this to herself?

No, that made no sense. The Jeanine Tris knew wouldn't do that.

Then again, everything about the Jeanine she knew is definitely gone.

"Jeanine, what happened to you?"

Pause. Tris can hear them breathing, one a little heavy and the other light and silent.

"Nothing. Nothing happened to me."

"Then why are you suddenly..." Tris can hear exasperation, confusion, but Jeanine's voice is still dull, as if whatever flame she used to have was extinguished.

"Why are you even here, Evelyn?"

Evelyn? Isn't that Tobias' mother's name?

"I just wanted to check on my son's girlfriend's body. Like you, he hopes she's okay. And if she really is dead, which we'll be testing, he wants to give her a proper burial. I see nothing wrong with any of that, and I understand his little dilemma. So I'll do that for him. He's my son, after all."

Yep. Definitely Tobias' mother.

"But didn't you leave him when you had enough?"

"That is not up for discussion."

"Didn't you run away after you realized there was nothing you could do to save him?"

"I said stop, Jeanine."

"Didn't you disappear from his life after you lost hope and gave up, not even thinking about what he'd feel if he lost his mother?"

"Jeanine."

Pause.

"You can take Beatrice's body for testing. But I have to be there during the testing."

"What right do you have?"

"I am the leader of Erudite. I command whatever testing you conduct here."

"What makes you think I'm giving you back your title so easily?"

"Because I know that you already know that I'm not, in any way, myself. And we both know that makes me easier to manipulate, especially by you."

Jeanine's voice gained strength. A lot of strength. But it still feels dull, so dull, compared to how she used to be.

Tris listens to them breathing; both a little heavy, both taking in normal breaths. She guesses they're looking at each other, staring each other down.

There's history, probably a lot of history, between Evelyn and Jeanine. And Tris guesses that goes way back, even before Jeanine became a power-hungry machine.

"My son's as closed in as you right now, but him, I understand. You, I don't get why you would even care about the Divergent _you_ killed."

Pause. Tris can hear slow, shaky breaths. The other is steady, a little heavy, but steady.

"And whether or not she's dead, Jeanine, you have no right to decide what we're going to do with her. Tobias is in charge of that."

Pause.

"Why do you even care if she's alive or dead?"

Pause.

"Why do you even _care_ about her?"

Pause.

"Because I do." It's soft, like a whisper, but it feels like a chaste first kiss when you're off guard, like a sip of hot soup that scalds your mouth but warms your throat. It's radiant, it's strong, but it's just a whisper.

A simple, emotionless whisper.

A few seconds pass and Tris hears slightly heavy steps walk even further away from her bed, and soon she hears the opening of her cell door. She imagines Evelyn step out, and on cue, she hears the door close, and she hears Jeanine sigh.

She hears a rustle of clothing, and the clicking of heels against the floor. The door opens, and for a second she thinks Jeanine's going to step out in an instant, then she'll be all alone in her cell, but she hears Jeanine's voice, directed at her instead.

"You're still alive, aren't you, Beatrice?" It sounds pleading, persuasive, as if Jeanine's trying to convince someone of something.

As if she's trying to convince herself of something.

Then the heals click again as the door closes, and Jeanine will never know how confused she leaves Tris, because why would Jeanine want her alive, why would Jeanine even care?

But Jeanine cares, because Jeanine sounds raw, and Tris would never believe that because Jeanine doesn't love, because Jeanine doesn't care. But Jeanine does, and as much as Tris wants to deny it, it's reality, and somewhere deep inside her, she feels the reality of someone caring about her warm her, but it can't be true, it can't be real, she can't actually like this so she denies it and sleeps it off instead.

* * *

She doesn't even bother to conceal her emotions. Then again, hasn't she stopped caring about that for the past three days?

She takes a right turn where she knows there would be no Dauntless. No Erudite, no Evelyn, and simply no one, except her in the white Erudite hall. She walks down the hall alone, and her expression is softer than it's supposed to be, but hasn't it been that way for the past three days?

" _What happened to you, Jeanine?"_

Quite simple actually, what happened to her; she gave up. There's nothing left in her to keep fighting, to keep pretending, to keep feeding lies to herself of things like she feels no emotions or like she only cares about the annihilation of Divergents. She's given up on pretending she doesn't feel lonely, or sad, and she's given up on trying to make herself the complete opposite of who she really is: human. She's tired, she's done, and she's simply giving up.

Technically, nothing happened to her. She just stopped lying to herself. She just let her real self show after all these years, the self inside her that's human, that's lonely, that loves like no other. Yes, Jeanine Matthews loves, though she would have never admitted that before, out loud or otherwise. She had too much pride then, but now, she's seen through it.

Though part of her blames herself because she got attached, because she let her emotions rule her, because she let her human nature get to her, another part of her tells her it would only be time until she gives in to it. Besides, she's human. To make herself believe that she could get rid of her own nature would be a lie, and in other words, ignorance. The exact opposite of what her faction, Erudite, stands for.

Around her, the walls are all white, the floor is white, and at the end of the hall is another corner. She turns it to arrive at the hallway of her living quarters, there where a few Dauntless soldiers stay, two guarding her door and the rest simply passing, and a few Erudite walking by as well, but she doesn't mind any of them. She knows they're all looking at her, be it a passing glance or a stare, but she can feel their eyes on her, but she just doesn't care. She hasn't for three days now.

Finally, she arrives at her door at the middle of the hall, and without even sparing the two Dauntless guards a glance, she enters.

The lock clicks behind her, and now she stands alone, again, in her darkened living room, everything untouched.

It's so lonely here, but it feels better than anyone who isn't Beatrice.

With every click of her heels against the tiles, she inches closer, closer, closer to her bedroom, and she feels the invisible tears return, she feels her heart grow heavier and heavier, clenching harder and harder.

How long has she even been keeping this locked away? This part of her that's hurting in hopeless loneliness? But it hurts right now and it took a girl to make her realize that, a girl that she now knows she would rather have died for. But no, she was foolish, she was blind, she was too encased in her own pride to have ever seen where she was going, what she was doing. And so, it took the death of a girl, the death of Beatrice Prior to shake her awake, to make her see reality.

But reality's too painful, too lonely, too dark and chaotic and hopeless.

She'd rather stay in her little emotionless bubble, but she can't.

She can't, but she wants to, but she wants to feel. She just wants to feel this, but it's so painful, so sad, so lonely, so bittersweet.

And so she feels, and as she curls up at the side of her bed, she wonders to the stars from mother's fairy tales and the gods from father's legends, and asks them why, but she knows she'll never know, she knows she'll never get an explanation or a simple reason, but here, in the darkness of her own room, everything feels like it's closing in on her, like it mocks her and reminds her of how she killed someone she loved – _loves_ – or like it's telling her she's all alone, that no one will ever love her, because no one ever will.

Who would ever love a monster? Who would ever love a woman who blinds herself in goals and lies and things that are just far from the truth? Who could even love someone who doesn't know how to love?

In the solidarity of her room, Jeanine sinks into the darkness, even just for a while, and she feels the tears skidding down her cheeks again, she feels the emotions crash into her all over again. She feels the loneliness devour her, the sadness, the sorrow take over all she's ever known. She feels herself come undone, in the most painful way, and she just cries and cries and cries, because it hurts, it hurts, it _hurts_ and she doesn't know why.

It just does.

* * *

He had already asked around, and even with this handful of information, he still didn't understand what was really going on.

He understood that Tris could be dead, and he hoped to God that isn't the case, though until now, he still didn't understand why Jeanine would care. At all.

When he woke up yesterday, he wasn't in his cell anymore. He didn't even feel numb anymore, or felt any kind of pain in his body. It was like he was given a dose of another serum, and it really did annoy him that he's being used like a test subject for serums. Is injecting this many serums in one body even safe? Because obviously, it isn't healthy.

He got up, then walked around the building, then found Peter, then asked about Jeanine. And what happened. And he just needed answers and Peter luckily gave him enough.

But after the whole four hours he spent asking what happened to Jeanine, he still didn't understand why Jeanine Matthews suddenly acted like she did. Jeanine doesn't feel anything. She's more machine than human. So what in hell happened to her?

After being locked in his room (so that's what this is now) by his mother, who apparently is now the leader of Erudite and, oh look, the whole city, he preferred to try to make sense of this whole thing since he's left with nothing to do, but so far, he's getting nowhere.

Though by all the witness accounts he's listened to, everyone is just as confused as he is. Besides, why would Jeanine even care about a Divergent, let alone Beatrice Prior? And why did she actually voluntarily lock herself in Tris' cell? It made no sense.

And he didn't even want to start thinking about why Peter acts like he's grieving or something. Nope, that would give him a headache.

Luckily, the Dauntless traitors (and the loyal Dauntless, apparently) were smart enough to leave him a notepad and a pencil apart from the emptiness of his room save for a bed and other luxuries he didn't really need. So, grabbing it off the desk and plopping it on his bed, he sat down and leaned on the headboard, if only to make sense of something, because 'everything' is going to take a long time to connect.

 _Beside him, there are trees. Trees, bushes, as if he's in a forest._

 _But here, where he's standing, it feels like a clearing; grass with no obstructions._

 _Far away, it looks like the ruins of a civilization, the ruins of the people from the war. It looks so destroyed, so devastated, crumbling down as if it's losing the will to exist._

 _In his hand he feels softness. A gentle, smooth caress of cloth, like silk or cotton, that he's tugging on for a reason he can't point out. The cloth is pulling away from him, and he's getting the instinct to hold on, to never let it go, so he keeps his grip tight, growing tighter and tighter._

 _He doesn't know when or how, but in front of him, he sees a girl with long, brown, braided hair. She's wearing a gray dress like the ones required in Abnegation, but on her body it looks more like an angel's robe. On her, it looks more white than gray, brighter and purer and livelier than the dullness it's really supposed to be._

 _She looks back at him, her lips pursed, and her eyes are a bright blue, brighter and deeper than the sky or even the clothes of Erudite. And her lips; something tells him they're supposed to be curved at the edges, smiling back at him._

 _The scene feels familiar, an eerie type of familiarity._

 _Erudite. Erudite._

 _Blue eyes. Long, brown, braided hair. Gray clothes that look more like white._

 _Gray clothes that look more like white._

 _An angel in rags, with a smile so bright._

 _He grips on tighter, and he knows he's holding on to the hem of her dress, and he just tightens his grip, because he can't let her go. He can't, not now, not again, because he can't let this happen, not again._

 _But the silk beneath his fingers slip away at the sound of a belt, cracking like a whip beside him._

 _He watches the scene unfold like it did before, and he nearly thinks she'll be okay after a few steps forward, forward toward the unknown world beyond the fence._

 _But, just as it happened, his hopes are crushed as a gunshot resounds, and blood bursts out the side of her body. She falls to her side and Mother runs off to her, and he looks at Father, but he doesn't look like he feels anything. He doesn't even look like he cares._

 _Emerging from the shadows is a lady in blue, with watery gray eyes and a beautiful appearance. But her expression is cold, save for the bit of amusement that sparkled deep in her eyes._

 _On she walks toward him, and beside him she stops, and whispers into his ears._

" _Your sister is dead."_

 _He wishes it would just stop, and it does, but he doubts these nightmares would stop haunting him ever again._

He shoots awake with beads of sweat trailing nearly every inch of his face. His clothes stick to him, and it suddenly feels like the room went up a few hundred degrees.

In front of him is not a girl with long, brown, braided hair, a girl with bright blue eyes, or a girl that looks more like an angel in a white dress than a girl in a dull, gray Abnegation dress, but the notepad and pen he grabbed from the desk, still blank, still empty.

He leans his head back on the headboard and closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, then lets out a sigh.

He seems to have fallen asleep, and instead of dreaming about making sense of why Jeanine Matthews is acting so out of character, he had to dream about _her_. He thought that was all in the past, but surprise, surprise, it's all coming back.

He leans back down and stares at the empty notepad. He guesses he won't be making sense of Jeanine Matthews' odd behaviour today.

"Trina." He whispers, as a knock resounds from his door.

* * *

 **So, that's it for now! I'm pretty open to constructive criticism, so if any of you guys think I should work on some things in my writing, feel free to tell me. Also, I apologize in advance if my next update will take long, but I'll try my best to bring it to you as soon as possible.**

 **Thank you for reading, and till next time!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry it took so long! I'm kinda getting busy now, so I'm sorry if uploads will take longer, but expect at least one new chapter every month. After such a long wait, without further ado, here is Chapter 5.**

* * *

"Will you be coming to the examination room?" It's his mother.

"I'll follow."

He waits a few seconds, and when she finally leaves, he let's out a sigh. Why did he even hold his breath? He didn't know. But he didn't feel like facing anyone right now; not Jeanine, not Tris' body, not his mother.

And for multiple reasons, he didn't want to see his mother. At least for the next few minutes.

He ruffles his hand through his hair and gets up from his bed. He needs a drink, and maybe a bath, so he looks for the glass of water (because surely, they'd have that; this is Erudite) and contemplates a shower before yet another set of knocks resound from his door.

Did his mother never leave? Not that she's never left before, but it sounded more like she did just a few seconds ago.

So who could this be, if not his mother?

Max. Chris. Maybe even Peter. A Dauntless soldier. An Erudite worker. But of all people, he never expected to hear her voice.

 _Her_.

"Tobias?" It couldn't be. "Tobias, may I speak with you for a moment?" Why would she even be here?

He waits for a moment, listens. But she's not making a move to leave, unmoving against the other side of his door. He hears her breathing, normally, deeply, but he feels her urgency in coming here. Not an urgent obligation, but somewhat a need.

So he keeps waiting. And listening. But she never leaves.

He unlocks his door and pulls it open. On the other side really stood the woman who had changed since Tris' death, the woman who they used to know as cold and heartless in the most machine kind of way.

"Come in. I have some questions to ask you too."

On the other side really stood Jeanine Matthews, in all her glory, or what used to be her glory, and as she steps in his room, he sees her look smaller than she used to, and he knows something's changed and her eyes are more sullen now, and she looks nothing like the woman they used to know.

But she's still Jeanine. That much, he can see.

Maybe this is just the person beneath the mask.

She comes in but stays by the wall, just standing there with her head bowed down, eyes cast to the floor. It's like she's a ghost of what she used to be, a shadow of the person she was before.

So he just sits at the edge of his bed right in front of her, and the silence is deafening but it's calm and soothing all at the same time.

"Do you think Beatrice could still be alive?" It echoes like a voice in a great, big cave; maybe the Pit.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Over exertion could lead to a lot of things."

"But do you think she could still be alive?"

She had no right to be asking that question.

She's the reason why Tris is dead, she's the reason why Tris ever chose to do this suicide mission in the first place. She's the reason the whole world is turning upside down, so what right does she have to be asking such a question?

But another part of him denies it; denies that she doesn't have the right to feel this way. Another part of him denies that she doesn't deserve to feel anything at all, that she doesn't deserve to change.

It's a part of him he'll never understand, but it's there, and it feels like it's half of him already.

"I hope so." He pushes himself off the edge of his bed and takes the place beside her against the wall. All he can hear is their breathing, and from here he realizes how much taller he is compared to her, or how much smaller she's become ever since it happened. From here, he can feel her shrinking, melting, as if she's giving up on something, breaking down walls that she once built around herself. "Do _you_ think she could still be alive?" Is this what he wanted to happen to this conversation?

"I hope she is." It's the desperate hope of a mother, of a lover, of a person that wants something to be so true so bad no matter how much of lie it is. But it's not a mother, or a lover, because it's Jeanine, or at least the woman beneath the machine.

The silence engulfs everything, and he doesn't notice how she pushes herself off the wall (she was leaning this whole time?) and leaves his room in complete silence. The next thing he remembers is a knock on his door once again, and his mother enters and words he dreads come out of her mouth.

"Tobias, let's go."

* * *

It's like everyone's looking at her.

But she doesn't meet their eyes. She doesn't look any of them in the eye, or even show recognition at the simple fact of their presence around her. She just stares ahead of her, into the void, to the end of the hall, to who knows where and if she'll be honest, she doesn't even know where she's looking at.

Ignorance. And she calls herself an Erudite?

The sound of each second passing resounds in her ear, but she's almost so sure that's it's just a figment of her imagination and not real at all, but she hears it so clearly. With every passing beat, she remembers the girl that shouldn't be lying lifeless on an examination table right now, and with every passing tick she wishes she had not been ignorant so as to actually believe all those lies she had fed herself.

In a blurry haze, she makes her way around the compound. Everything looks white and blue and dashes of black here and there, which she guesses to be people's glasses.

She doesn't even notice when opaque walls turn into transparent glass, and when young, blue-clad workers, turn into white labcoat-wearing scientists.

And the numbers on the doors pass by in a haze. She doesn't even care until she sees the one she's looking for.

Lab 66.

The lab where Beatrice's body awaits.

She hesitates at the door; stops and stares into the room beyond the glass doors. There are people and a table for examination, and Evelyn is not here but Jeanine can't see Beatrice's face from here, but she can't move, so she pushes herself to walk forward, to walk into the range of the sensors, but she can't move, she can't move, she can't-

"Will you be staying out here, Jeanine?"

But she has to. She has to. Beatrice would not want to see her face, and it will just hurt her in the end, but she has to. She has to go in there and be in there when Beatrice wakes up.

So Jeanine steps forward, and the sensors activate and the glass doors slide open. She steps in the room and keeps to the side, the way to the observation room, and she can hear footsteps behind her but it's so irrelevant that she doesn't hear it at all.

A few more moments. A few minutes more. Then Beatrice might wake up, and she'll be dead no more.

"Do you think she could still be revived?" It's possible, yes, but the possibility of it being a successful trial is a hundred to ten. Significantly high, but still low.

"Yes." Still, Beatrice can be revived. She can, and will be revived. She can't be dead.

But when she wakes up, what will she say? Will she hate Jeanine Matthews, the one responsible for what could be called her death?

Of course she will. But she could also not. She could, for all the possibilities, see a change in Jeanine, and possibly not hate her at all.

Possibly. But she can still be revived.

Jeanine thinks about what it would mean if Beatrice doesn't even care about her. If Beatrice wouldn't even want to see her face, not after all she's done. Beatrice would be happy with Tobias and they might just escape the hands of the city, and Evelyn might not even know of their absence till the morning but by then it would be too late, and they would have already gone too far for any of them in the city to reach.

Beatrice would never want to go to her. Who would want to love their killer?

No one.

And if the same thing happened to Jeanine, she's sure she'd feel the same.

"But what if she isn't?"

"Isn't?"

"Revived."

Pause.

"We'll have a burial."

The silence is tense. The laboratory-assigned scientists are on the move. Beatrice's body lies lifeless on the examination beyond the glass pane. They stand still in the observation room as they wait, and beside her, Tobias stands firm and strong, but she can feel the anxiety and worry and fear radiating from him; the exact same thing radiating from her.

What if Beatrice is never revived? Then Evelyn could hold a knife to her throat and she wouldn't even care.

* * *

 _"… Five, four, three, two, one. Commence."_

She'll be honest and straightforward. It hurts. It hurts like hell.

It's like being shot with a lightning strike, just about a hundred times. While being smothered by a gigantic fire. And with salt being applied endlessly to multiple cuts all over her body. It just really hurts, and while she wants to move around to make the pain go away, it's not like she was able to move a second ago, now was she?

So the shock courses through her veins and mixes with her blood, even to the point where she's nearly sure her blood's turned into electricity. Her heartbeat is past the point of human, and she can feel herself melting, bit by bit, vein by vein. Her head pounds, thumps, beats, as if her heart is in her skull.

Is there screaming around her? Is anyone talking? What's exactly happening? She had no way to tell, and even when she tries to listen, all she hears is a high-pitched screeching sound, like nails dragging slow and hard on an old blackboard.

She hears nothing else.

But then she feels her fingers flexing, and she sees a blinding whiteness that she's sure isn't just white. Her vision adjusts, but it's still blurry right now.

Beneath her, she feels smooth steel, and she spreads her hand to revel in the feeling.

She smells the sick scent of a laboratory. Smoke, which is probably her. And she tastes metal at the tip of her tongue.

She can see. She can feel. She can move. She can smell. She can taste.

 _Again_.

Then a person appears at the corner of her vision. No, above her. The face is strong and familiar, and his lips move but she doesn't understand him. In her ears, the only sound she hears is a high-pitched screech, and while the return of life in her body is overwhelming, the screeching makes her rethink everything.

Tobias is speaking, in front of her.

But she can't hear a thing.

* * *

 **Was it too short? Do you have something to tell me? Feel free to leave reviews or message me. Goodbyes are sad, but you know what, there's still next time so:**

 **See you next time!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hey guys! Sorry for the super late update! I know I promised to post at least once a month but August was really busy for me. I'll try to post two chapters (this and the next) this month, but I don't think I can make promises. I'll try my best though, so without further ado, my dear and beloved readers, The One: Chapter 6.**

* * *

She doesn't dare go past the glass pane. She doesn't dare go to the room on the other side.

She just stands, as if frozen in time, in her place there in the observation room. She doesn't move, not even one inch, and she doesn't even breath for fear of everything becoming real. Strands of her hair are blown by the air conditioning unit above her, and it sways frigidly off to the side.

She doesn't dare move. The truth of it all is already suffocating her as it is.

So she doesn't dare move in her place, but her eyes watch every bit of movement in the other room like a hawk watching its prey; every little detail absorbed, everything in sight counted as significant.

She watches the confused expression on Beatrice's face, the horrified look in those eyes, and the caring touch of Tobias. She watches him help Beatrice off the table, his eyes worried and caring and loving all at the same time. She watches Evelyn talking to the scientists in the lab, the scientists that used to be under her care, but she doesn't care about the power she lost or the glory that used to be, because Beatrice is alive and she's not dead and she's _right there_.

But Jeanine doesn't move. She should, but she doesn't.

She doubts she has a right to.

"Ms. Matthews?" The voice seems distant, but she is shaken out of her stupor and she looks to her side. The scientist's face is close; just beside her.

She nods to him, for him to continue.

"Ms. Johnson would like to get your permission to run additional tests on Beatrice Prior."

Jeanine wonders if she looks as stoic as she wants to look. Just for the sake of feeling like herself again, even if it's just superficial, a cover, a mask. Whether or not she looks convincing, the scientist doesn't show anything.

She hopes, just hopes, hopes against all odds that the scientist sees nothing she doesn't want him to see.

"Permission granted." Her voice strikes with the same calm but steely sound as it used to have. But if once it felt like it was a weapon, now it feels like someone else's skin.

It doesn't feel right. Not right now. And for all possible reasons, she wishes it would just feel right.

She doesn't move, not an inch, but she can hear the scientist's feet walking away from here, and through the glass panel that closes so smoothly, in such a sleek motion, with no sound at all like a stealthy Dauntless.

Beyond the glass division is Beatrice Prior, alive and breathing, in Tobias Eaton's arms.

No, it's simply Beatrice Prior. Alive, breathing, and as she's always been.

Jeanine makes her move to leave. But her body doesn't budge; she doesn't move an inch.

The distant echoes of "How many fingers am I holding up?" and "Current observations show she may be deaf." resound in her ears. So Beatrice is deaf? How? Is it curable? What medicine is needed for it? Will it need an operation? Questions flood her mind; how could it not? But the other side of her just wants to leave.

So she does. It isn't like she's needed here right now. So she decides that the best course of action would be to get started on research.

So she finally moves and heads toward the glass doors, away from Beatrice and Tobias and Evelyn, and she steps out and leaves. Her breathing's slightly heavy, but she's keeping it even, even, even, at least for now while she is not in her room.

There is no use crying. There is no use feeling hurt. But she knows she's lying to herself again.

Still, at least for now, she has to be unfeeling. At least until she gets to her room.

* * *

She's deaf.

Tris is deaf.

At least, that's what he observes. Further examinations that will produce results by later in the day will tell him if it's just long term or short term, or if it'll return to normal by the end of the day.

Then again, she's here, she's alive, she's breathing.

She's _okay_.

And, more than anything, that's what he wants. For her to just be okay.

He tries to comfort himself for the rest of the time he knows he has to wait, with thoughts of _it'll get better_ and _she'll get better_ and _this won't take too long_ , but still his anxiety builds up and his worries multiply. There's nothing to worry about, he knows that, but he can't risk losing her again.

He just can't. That'd be the death of him.

So he decides to take a walk, as per his mother's advice actually, around Erudite grounds.

Honestly, the outside never looked more like Amity. There were rose bushes and orchids, and the steel structures were replaced with fruit-bearing trees, and there were wooden benches here and there, by rose bushes and under trees.

It looks so different, and yet the glare of the glass buildings makes it feel the same.

His mind wanders to Tris as he walks past the tree that took the place of the enormous steel sculpture, to the strength he knows she has, to the fragile girl he knows he failed to protect. He knows very well she's strong on her own, but he can't forgive himself for the failure. But he has to; she'd want him to.

He passes a rose bush somewhere at the outskirts of the main section of Erudite, and his mind wanders next to Jeanine. Jeanine Matthews, once cold, but now soft-hearted and vulnerable, dare he even say crushed. Devastated, done. Wasted.

How can such a cold soul, the cold soul that nearly murdered Tris, actually care like she has? It doesn't make sense, though as far as he knows about humanity and the complicated sense that it holds, he guesses that maybe Jeanine had cared before. Cared. She couldn't have cared about Tris during the experimentation though, so he wonders why she suddenly started to care again.

Jeanine Matthews is a complex woman. That much is true, and he's concluded that since the beginning.

With a sigh, he sits down on a bench by a rose bush, under a cherry blossom tree, and there he leans back, looking up at the sky and closing his eyes. His arm drapes over his eyes, blocking away all light that could possibly leak in, and all he sees is darkness behind his eye lids.

Darkness, until he sees Tris again.

 _She'll be okay,_ he tells himself again, hoping it'd be the last time he'll have to say that to himself.

 _She'll be okay,_ and he won't lose her smile, or her laugh, or her strong self that melts right into him.

She's strong, sometimes he sees her without weakness. And so he knows, he just knows that she can't not be okay. She'll be okay, surely, without a doubt.

Still, as he lifts his arm off his eyes and looks up at the now darkening sky, his fears eat him once again, but he pushes them away enough to breathe, enough to remember that Tris will be okay. Dead or not, they'll figure it out, and she'll be okay, and thoughts of Jeanine Matthews invade him too, but he pushes it all away and focuses instead on the sky that he knows will soon give away rain drops. It's dark and gray and heavy; but it's light enough for his messed up mind.

* * *

All she can hear is an annoying buzzing sound. Above her, she can see the in and out of people, swerving through the lights as shadows dance in the light that leaks through her eye lids.

She's deaf now, isn't she?

And she knows it won't be temporary.

What now, if she's alive but deaf? How will she live? She has a part of Erudite in her, and she urges the Erudite in her to awaken, to take over, to become more than it has ever been since she had to suppress it for her own good. She wills for the smart Tris to come, but the more she thought of Erudite, the more she thought of her.

If Tris would be deaf now, and if her ears will never hear again, then she'll only ever have a memory of her voice, and how she wants to hear that voice again, with those words, because it doesn't sound like the woman she knew, but it is, it is, it is, and she won't believe it but she wants to.

 _"I actually wished I could put you in a special program when I noticed you excelling in the Maths and Sciences. You're a smart girl, Beatrice; you should have never been held prisoner by your old faction's traditions."_

She made Tris feel like every part of her is worth it, that her intelligence and humility and bravery are all perfect pieces of her. She made Tris feel like she's an actual person, like she can protect herself but sometimes she will need to be protected, and the understanding feels so nice because someone finally gets her. Someone finally understands her, and for the first time, Tris feels like she finally knows the truth in the words when she says it: someone finally, completely, utterly, wordlessly, limitlessly, shamelessly loves her and all her Divergence.

And to think it would come from the woman who most would say is her killer.

But no, Jeanine Matthews is not a machine, is not a monster, is not a living, breathing apparatus that doesn't know how to be human. Jeanine is just a woman caged in so many walls that she protected herself with–though however that started, Tris might never know–and simply needing someone to break through it. Sometimes, and Tris had learned this once before, people only realize what they need after it is given to them.

If before she thought she needed Tobias' love, then now she thinks that maybe it was just to prepare her for something more.

Or is Jeanine the test she has to face? She didn't know. She didn't care.

All she knows is that if her deafness would be permanent then she would never hear Jeanine's voice ever again, and such a thought ignited something in her, and she just knew that Jeanine's voice is too much to lose.

Jeanine Matthews may have been a heartless person when they met her, and maybe she was a heartless person even before Tris' parents fell in love, but surely she was a child once that knew nothing of the world and was completely innocent and untainted; loving, with a heart filled with wonder.

Tris knows that the child, or maybe just completely and utterly Jeanine, is still somewhere in there, somewhere beneath those blue pressed clothes and watery gray eyes, beneath all her steely looks and unfeeling gazes.

Tris knows, and she doesn't know how she knows, but she just knows that Jeanine is not what they think she is. Tris knows Jeanine, and Jeanine can love, can hate, can feel.

Jeanine Matthews is just afraid of being hurt. And of all the things Tris has ever known, she knows how to spot someone who has been hurt in the worst way.

And she can remember Jeanine's words so clearly, so vividly, that she could nearly feel her own lips moving to the movement of Jeanine's words, as if she feels those words too.

Does she? She doesn't even know, but neither does she care.

 _"I love you. And I wish you wouldn't hurt as much as I do."_

Tris continues to watch the dancing shadows that leak through her eyelids. She's nearly sure they're going to operate her, all until she takes a peek and in the corner of her vision, she sees stark blue clothing and blonde hair, and of course, those watery gray eyes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Hey guys! Sorry for the late (and I guess last minute?) update. But, as promised, two chapters this month, to make up for my absence of an update last month. Without further ado: Chapter 7.**

* * *

The initial shock came to her: is it really? Could it be? But why?

No, she knows why. Jeanine would want to save her. Jeanine wouldn't want her to die. But she doesn't believe it, but she wants to believe it, because a part if her just _knows_ it can't be true, that it's all a lie, that none of it is real.

" _I love you to the moon and back."_

But it is. She knows the raw emotion, she knows the desperate plea of love.

She knows that's not the machine everyone knows, not the cold and heartless being that is well known to be Jeanine Matthews. She knows it can't be the one who nearly killed her, not the sociopathic leader of Erudite, not the woman-scientist that everyone knows will stop at nothing until she gets what she wants, but instead, it's the woman that hid beneath.

A machine doesn't love, let alone knows how to love. But the woman she remembers talking to her, caring about her, doesn't just love, but loves so much. Possibly so much to the point of _too_ much, but it's okay, because Tris would gladly take it.

It's the kind of love someone could get drunk on and still want more of

And so, when she sees the blonde hair and the blue dress and those watery gray eyes beneath lab glasses, she's washed over by surprise and relief and anxiety; what is she supposed to feel? What is she supposed to believe? She didn't even know, and she didn't have time to decide, and she tries to listen but oh she remembers she's deaf right now.

How lucky.

So she just watches Jeanine move in fluid motions around the lab, and lab instruments glint from all around in the artificial light that shines above her. Jeanine is given papers, and Tris is sure those are reports, reports on her health condition and more things she would understand more if only she was taught Erudite things. Jeanine's eyes are calculating, nearly void of emotion, but Tris knows those eyes are not cold and unfeeling, but determined and focused.

But those watery gray eyes don't talk chances and not once glances in Tris' way.

So their gazes never meet, but Tris watches Jeanine as the scenes unfold before her deaf self that lies down on something. (A bed? A metal cart? A mattress? She doesn't know.)

Jeanine goes from her left to her right, from her right to her left, reading papers and absorbing new information, discussing facts and discussing methods, and Tris knows all that by the way Jeanine is, by the way Jeanine talks with so much confidence and superiority as if she never broke down, as if she never grew weak, as if she's still the person she was before this whole she's-dead-but-no-she's-not thing happened.

But Tris knows by the way Jeanine's eyes light up that she's not the person she used to be, and that she's changed more than anyone would ever comprehend.

She's not heartless, or ruthless, or downright unfeeling. She's not the machine she used to be, not the Erudite leader that everyone knew her as. No, this is Jeanine Matthews, not the monster, not the machine, not the antagonist of everyone's story, but simply the woman who is also a scientist who has a heart that loves so much.

* * *

He only ever really loved once. He remembers realizing that just before he met Tris.

He remembers how he thought he could never love anyone as much as he loved her, his sister, his elder sister that was only seven years old before her life was taken away by the Erudite, by Jeanine Matthews no less. And because of that he knew he would never love anyone as much as he loved his sister, because his mother only left him and it filled him with disgust, and his father only ever punished him and it filled him with, admittedly, fear.

But Tris came in his life and proved to him that there's someone else that can make his heart beat not for hatred, but for love. Tris proved to him that he had a long way to go, and that revenge and ignorance could never help him solve the problems that plagued him in the darkest moments of the night.

She proved to him, and still proves to him, that no matter what he has gone through, no matter what he chooses to feel, he is still capable of loving someone through everything that's gone wrong.

And he believes all that she's proven to him. Though he can see someone else being proven wrong, just like he was proven wrong, just like Tris proved to him that he can still love, amidst all the betrayal and hurt and pain.

That person may have not even thought about loving anyone before, and maybe that person made herself believe she was not and shouldn't be capable of loving in any way for anything other than her work and field of expertise.

That person, because of Tris, has learned to love again just like he has.

It's obvious how Jeanine's changed, how the steely woman is not so steely anymore. She's not filled with bitter intentions or unfeeling words any longer. Jeanine Matthews is not, anymore, the sociopathic leader of Erudite that they used to know, but instead a woman who hides behind a mask, a woman who loves so much, _too_ much, that it can be seen in her eyes how the cold has turned into warmth.

And, just like him, Jeanine changed because of Tris.

 _6:00 pm_

As much as he tries, the image of the girl he knew, of the angel in gray rags he knows as his elder sister, of the seven-year-old girl who was killed without fault remains in his mind, at the back of his mind, and the throb of an old hatred for Jeanine Matthews beats at the bottom of his heart.

He should get to Tris now. It's getting late, and the skies are growing dark.

So he stands up and off the bench and heads back into the building just as the first drop of summer rain falls on Erudite ground.

* * *

" _Her deafness is, so far, by our knowledge and research in the database, permanent and not possible to cure."_

" _There are theoretical ways we can do this, though it has less than a ten percent chance of being successful."_

" _The greatest risk would be the possibility of permanently damaging her nervous system, putting her in a permanent coma-like state. She feels nothing but can speak and think like a normally healthy person, but, in layman's terms, she won't be the same."_

By the time all the reports were relayed to her, Jeanine had already laid out the plan she knows would be best to perform on Beatrice. With how permanent Beatrice's deafness is, all the risks seem to be worth it at this point, though most methods, even the one Jeanine had in mind, had less than a fifty percent chance of success.

So why take the risk?

For once, Jeanine doesn't lie to herself. For once, instead of reasoning out that it is for research, it is for the 'good' of the city, it is for the future generations, she confesses that yes, this is for Beatrice, to give Beatrice a good life, to lift a burden from Beatrice's shoulders.

This is all for Beatrice, all the risk, all the pain, all the worry and anxiety, for Beatrice, and only for Beatrice.

And what if the risks aren't worth it? What if the method cannot cure the deafness Beatrice now possesses?

"Inject the serum."

Jeanine has laid out more than one plan, of course. She isn't that foolish to only cling on to one method.

And so she watches the serum of green liquid be injected into Beatrice, the needle puncturing soft and delicate skin while Beatrice's eyes disappear beneath her eye lids. Beatrice's eyes shut close, tightly, strongly, as if absorbing the pain of such a poison injected into her.

"Excuse me, sir, you are not allowed in here."

"Sir, only authorized personnel are allowed in here."

"Sir-"

"Sir-"

"Mr. Eaton-"

"What are you injecting into her?"

Jeanine doesn't look back and neither does her gaze soften. She knows that voice well, though it surprises her how it is not laced now with malice or threat, but instead, urgency.

The syringe is now empty of the green liquid. The needle is taken out, and the soft skin bounces back to position.

"A modified version of the fear serum."

"What?"

She turns to face Tobias, no longer the little boy she remembers. No longer the little boy she hurt that day, but the man Beatrice fell in love with.

"I created modifications on the fear serum to jolt awake the part in Beatrice's brain that controls her hearing. Based on the reports, the shocks done to wake her up ruptured that part of her brain, though not seriously enough for her to hear completely nothing. She hears a high frequency noise with a constant tone for as long as the time she woke up, and so I modified the serum to jolt that part of her brain and at the same time distract her from whatever necessary procedure we must conduct."

"What procedures would be necessary?"

In the background, Jeanine can hear the other scientists retreat into the observation room. There, she's sure they watch Beatrice's hallucinations induced by the serum, as well as observe her brain.

"If the serum cannot work alone, a delicate operation that may take a few hours to execute. The risks are high, but success is worth it."

She looks up into Tobias' eyes and she knows he understands what she's talking about. This operation—these risks they re taking—may not be beneficial for the future generations or even the Erudite database, but if it can cure Beatrice's deafness, then all the risk and anxiety and worry would be worth it.

All they both want is for Beatrice to be okay. That, more than anything, is worth more than any risk either of them would have to take.

"Is there something I can do?"

"You may help out her brother in the laboratory if you wish."

"Okay."

She watches Tobias exit the glass door, and she follows after him. Behind her, Beatrice lies in a thin mattress as if asleep, the modified fear serum coursing through her veins.


	8. Chapter 8

**Hello! I'm very sorry for this three-month-late update. School has been breathing down on my neck and, well, as much as I would have wanted, I couldn't write at all. Here it is, though. I'm going to try to put another one up before New Year. And without further ado.**

* * *

Where is this?

Cobblestone streets spread far and wide, vines crawling on buildings, covering them in a green wrap over the moss that has grown through time. Fallen columns block some roads, and from where she's standing divides four paths from a central square: one to the north, another to the south, and to the east, and to the west. The four paths are all made with stone arcs as some kind of entrance, and when she looks up, the sky is a bright blue with fluffy white clouds overhead.

A flock of birds pass by.

But she doesn't hear a thing.

And just then does she realize the constant presence of a hum in her ears, a constant screech like when she was in the Erudite laboratory. It remains no matter how much she moves, no matter how long she waits, and she wonders if that serum is supposed to clear her deafness.

Maybe it will, maybe it won't. She'll have to see for sure.

But this place strikes her with awe and wonder, and Tris finds herself walking forward down a cobblestone path, slowly, steadily, passing under an arc covered with moss and vines with some hanging flowers.

The smell is sweet; fragrant like perfume. It's familiar and warm and foreign all at the same time. Even while she still can't hear, she can smell, she can feel, and for now, that's enough.

When she closes her eyes, she sees stark blue clothing and blonde hair, but most of all, watery gray eyes.

She walks on. Where is she? This landscape is unlike any she's ever seen, and she doubts anyone who's ever taken the fear serum has ever seen this before either.

So she takes her chance: to explore this land it is.

The path she takes merges with a larger road that plows through the ruins of this ancient city and cuts through to a colossal stadium. Crumbling walls and fallen pillars, but it still stands prominent among the ruins of this mysterious landscape.

Will she find something there? Will it simply be a waste of effort? The fact that she's here is already enough proof that she's supposed to do something.

So she proceeds to the colosseum down the cobblestone street, more ruins and fallen pillars scattered around her.

But the road is untouched by the debris from whatever happened when this city fell.

As she walks down the main street of this place of ancient ruins, her eyes dance left and right, marveling at the sights of columns from more than a century ago, awe-struck by what she knows she can never see anywhere else than this fear landscape.

Fear? Maybe awe.

The street seems to go on for feet on end. And left and right there are arcs that stand and pillars that have fallen, walls with the top half of their material rubble on the ground, devoured by the crawling vines that bear flowers of more than one kind. There are holes on the ground with staircases leading deeper into the earth, and some lucky chairs that are still left standing.

Statues of gods and goddesses are spread far and wide, one holding lightning and another holding that ancient weapon called a trident, another wielding a bow and arrow, and so on.

Her feet walk on and it feels like she's in another world (which, in a way, she is); it feels like she's been taken back in time to see and relive the world that used to be before whatever ravaged the world ravaged it.

It's all so beautiful, especially the prominent structure that lies ahead.

* * *

"I believe that is called the Roman Colosseum."

 _"Neutralize her!"_

 _"The syringe!"_

 _"The serum!"_

"What's that?"

 _"Get her heart rate steady!"_

 _"Joshua, the drug!"_

"It was a prominent structure of Ancient Rome. Long before the modern age, before our technology ever existed, people found entertainment in other citizens either battling or being fed to lions. It was execution and entertainment, but also a simple battle to the death, though still entertainment. The stadiums in their time were small compared to the Roman Colosseum, and to put it in lay man's terms, one day they just thought of creating a much bigger stadium that resulted in the Roman Colosseum."

 _"Do NOT let her go into a comatose."_

"But why would a fear serum trigger her to imagine something she might not even know about? It's obvious the serum was modified, but why would it come to that? It's not even a familiar idea, let alone a familiar setting."

She stands beside him with just as disheveled a look, because they both need Tris to come out of this alive and well—not worse—and he remembers how she shouted orders at doctors and scientists and all the people who work in that section of Erudite, how even for a few moments, she seemed to have gone back to being the old Jeanine Matthews. But the old Jeanine Matthews would have had eyes as unfeeling and steely as a machine's. This Jeanine Matthews' eyes are alight with a determination they share: to save Tris from whatever it is they've risked her into.

Now Tris is out of harm, or at least safe for the mean time, but he wonders how a fear serum could actually create a place the person never even knew about, never even knew existed. Forget knowing how the place looks like, Tris didn't even know anything about the Roman Colosseum.

None of them do. Except the generation before them.

The generation before them which includes Jeanine.

She speaks again, just as factually as she did the last time, her eyes trained to the hologram displaying Tris' view, her voice calm and emotionless though her eyes display a loss of adrenalin but the presence of emotion.

"The serum contains a slight electrical wave that can only be triggered by a wave just as strong, if not stronger, than itself. It's possible that the electrical activity reached Beatrice's brain, as it's supposed to, though altered any landscape that was supposed to appear because of Beatrice's health condition. What I say are just theories though, so it may be wrong."

They stay silent after that, maybe an unspoken agreement between them to give all their attention to Tris.

So they do. Just as Tris walks at the tip of the cobblestone path, now directly in front of the Roman Colosseum.

* * *

It's like there are doors from all around, as if on every floor there is a door from the outside to the inside. But it seems the structure was never finished, with so many vines coating the concrete that amazingly stands erect even after what looks to be centuries worth of endurance.

The concrete though, as old as it seems, still bears a rich cream color. And with the vines that cover it bearing leaves that gleam with dew under what seems to be the late morning sun, with flowers blooming from place to place, the age of the structure didn't matter. It's

as if it was made to be unfinished, as if nature would finish the building for it. To make some kind of hidden paradise, an escape for all in hardships and jeopardy.

And the smell, oh the smell; it's not like some stuffy old building with columns soaked in age-old water. It smelled of flowers: sweet, sweet flowers.

Her feet surge on, toward the intriguing structure that stands before her, the sweet scent of the flowers filling her senses.

She is welcomed by one of the arc-shaped entrances extending at least half a meter long, spanning wide enough to fit maybe more than five people, higher than even three of her could reach, and maybe just barely if the height of hers and Tobias' would be doubled. To add to that, vines crawl on it, nearly covering every surface of the stone. The flowers sprout from everywhere, and where the entrance ended, above head there are bits of vines reaching out like hands, with flowers at their ends.

Inside, it's an even more stunning view.

There is no ceiling, except the sky that's bluer than any sky she's ever scene from the Abnegation or even the Dauntless headquarters. The clouds are like cotton in the beautiful dome sky, and the wind comes in as if to comb her hair, as if the wind has fingers that long to slide through her hair. Just as it caresses her skin and touches her cheek, the wind brings the scents of all the flowers blooming in the stadium, as if giving her a bouquet of every flower she could ever dream of, and more. The sun shines into the stadium as the wind blows on the leaves of every vine, and the colors drown every inch of her sight—vibrant greens, bright pinks, strong reds, pastel peaches, and so many more hues that they seem to be never-ending.

It's a beautiful sight. Like a dream in paradise.

Soon enough, the wind dies down and the sun dims, but the smile on Tris' face can't seem to leave just yet, so she closes her eyes to listen to the melody of this place where she wishes she could stay in forever, this place that could be her escape from everything and anything that would try to hurt her.

Seconds pass and all she can hear is a high-pitched screeching sound in her ears. She opens her eyes just as the last bits of her smile fade.

 _Right. I'm deaf._

The paradise stops feeling like a paradise in those moments.

* * *

Tobias stands beside her, neither of them making a word. Or, for that matter manner, any audible sound.

Without having to move her eyes to look at where his is trained to, she knows he's watching that holographic screen just as intently as she is, watching every movement as if it could be Beatrice's last. And truth be told, it could. If anything were to go wrong.

Certainly, neither of them would want that. It's beyond a certainty that either and both of them would want no harm to befall Beatrice. But in these moments, it's really up to Beatrice to keep herself alive, because at this point, with all the necessary procedures done to keep Beatrice's body at a particularly healthy state, the only thing left is for Beatrice to find the trigger for the serum to activate.

Otherwise, this will all end in jeopardy. One that would be irreversible, one that Jeanine would give anything to prevent.

This had been risky from the start. But it's the only chance they have of getting Beatrice's hearing back.

Jeanine's sure that even Tobias would have done the same thing should he have been in her place.

Anything for Beatrice. Absolutely and completely anything for Beatrice.

* * *

 **Thank you again for reading, even with this very late update. Have a Merry Christmas!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hello! So here is the next chapter, as promised, before New Year. Happy Day Before New Year's Eve!**

* * *

Tris blinks to avert her eyes from the vines and leaves and flowers flowing in the wind. The sun is still shining down into the colosseum, making everything look blinding, and Tris admits it would've been a pleasant kind of blinding if it didn't literally burn her eyes.

She trudges on, trying to forget the beauty of this nature-devoured place, a certain beauty that she would love if only she could hear. Sure, the sights and smells are perfect, and the caress of the wind on her skin is sweet, but she couldn't hear the wind whistling by, or maybe a horn was already sounding in the distance but she would never hear a thing.

Her feet step over crawling vines and her legs cross over gaps and go over fallen blocks covered in moss and more vines. She lets her eyes wander to the distant arcs that could be an exit from this colosseum, or an entrance to some place else. But so far, she can only see it extending into more ruins, like the ones she had just walked away from when she entered the colosseum.

Just like the fear serum, Tris guesses she needs to get something done here before she can wake up again.

And so far, the only lead she has is needing to be somewhere, and maybe wherever she needs to be will hold whatever thing she needs to do to get out of here. She's sure she can figure out what she has to do. The hard part there, then would be finding where she has to be, or at least the path that will lead her there.

She continues looking around, but finds nothing.

She finds herself staring off to somewhere, some place, way off there beyond the ruins, beyond one of the arc exits, and a sigh seems to escape her. She feels the long exhale from her nose, and how her shoulders relax, and she honestly doesn't know since when she tensed up, but she did and now she wonders helplessly. What is she going to do?

Only the luckiest or smartest people can ever find their way out of a situation like this. No guide, no clues, no hints, but if a person is lucky enough, it's obvious that person will find what he or she is looking for, just stumbling upon it in due time. If a person is smart enough, no amount of luck is needed. A smart person will have the entire puzzle figured out before Tris can even find the hidden entrance or whatever she's looking for.

The wind caresses her face once again. It brings with it strands of her hair that tickle her nose and cheeks. The scents of the flowers flood in her nose once again, and it makes her eyes close shut with how fragrant all those scents turn out to be. If she tries hard enough, she swear she can almost feel Tobias' hands on her face, urging her to face back forward, to move on, to keep going. And she's glad for him, for the memory of him, because he reminds her to be strong when she loses all her strength, when she loses sight of the strength she possesses.

But the scents bring the image of a blue dress and a blue blazer and blonde hair, and most of all, watery gray eyes.

The scents bring the image and the image bring a sound, a sound that Tris is sure she hears, but she knows that would be impossible, because all she actually hears is a high-pitched screech that seems to go on endlessly. But she nearly thinks she can hear again with the sound—no, the voice—that resounds in her ears from a memory.

"You can do it, Beatrice. You're strong enough for this."

She wants to believe it even if she doesn't. It feels wrong to want such a thing when in fact, she shouldn't. Why would she? Why should she? But the words that she had listened to when she was still knocked out keep going in her head, keep resounding in her ears, as if to dominate the screech that now keeps her from hearing anything, including that woman's voice.

"Do it for… Do it for me."

Her eye lids lift and Tris faces forward once again, eyes shining with determination.

In front of her stands a hole in the ground, one that looks like it has steps going down, as well as a stone railing that descends in a spiral. She walks up to it, knowing full well what she needs to do.

Her steps are no longer slow and calm, but fast and urgent.

Stepping onto the first step, the step before the stone staircase descended, Tris nearly wishes it was the memory of Tobias' caress that pushed her on, that pulled her out of her momentary grief and back into her mission, though she knows deep down that isn't the case.

The fact is, she can't believe such a thing.

Not yet.

Though she already does.

* * *

Tris' foot lands on the first step that descends into the ground. Her hand is on the rail, a firm yet cautious grip, as if she is expecting it to crumble and collapse any time now, though she is not reckless enough to think she does not need the railing entirely.

Just like he taught her.

And it fills him with so much pride yet so much anxiety. It makes him feel like she might just slip out of his grasp like she would slip on the steps, and there'll be no way to get her back because the only her he'll ever see will be the Tris losing the life in her eyes, the beautiful glint fading into a dull, hollow shine.

But he can't doubt Tris, and he knows in himself that he doesn't doubt Jeanine, because Tris may be reckless but she's Erudite too, isn't she? She got that in her aptitude test, too. And Jeanine, with renewed purpose and all the knowledge she has, he knows he can't doubt someone who has only ever done things for a purpose which would mostly be to succeed.

But every experiment can fail right? What then?

He tries not to think about it, because there's no use troubling himself now and making himself less complacent before Tris comes back. She can handle it herself, and he knows that.

She's always been strong, and he knows he can't doubt her strength because her strength is his strength and if all else fails, she'll be the only one left who can bring him back up. If he doubts her strength, it would be like doubting his reason to live.

And he can't do that. He has to keep believing for her.

"So how is she doing?" A voice says from beside him.

Had he known someone was there? Maybe. Maybe not. Though he seems to have already felt the presence before he became aware of knowing someone's there.

"Okay." It's like a Dauntless sort of thing, if Tobias would think about it. Facing one's fear head on, not conspiring a way around it, or giving one's self away. Tris is facing this head on, even if this isn't a fear, but she is still facing it head on in the most Divergent way possible.

No, in the most Tris way possible.

Because Tris isn't just Dauntless or Divergent. She's Tris.

And he wouldn't change that.

He and Peter stay in silence as they watch the hologram projection of Tris in the simulation, all the while he feels Jeanine just stand still watching, observing, and not uttering a word while the simulation goes on.

None of them actually speak though. The only ones who speak are the ones in the other room, the people who actually take note of specific things and analyze and maybe manipulate. Their voices, though not loud, echo in the room they stand in, words flying around the room about electric jolts and chemicals and scientific this and thats, most things Tobias doesn't understand and probably won't try to understand either.

No sound really comes from their room. All until there is a sound of an Erudite door—or rather, the door to their room—opening.

All three heads turn to the door where a man stands in all his Erudite neatness.

Caleb Prior.

* * *

Tris reaches the end of the steps, and she feels the air vibrate in a hollow way. She imagines that if she could hear it, it would sound like a _thunk_ that bounces off the walls like a shout in a cave.

Her eyes scan the hall before her, with crumbling stone ceilings and rock walls with crawling vines.

Here, there are no fragrant flowers or vibrant colors. The light of the sun can't reach here, and whatever waits wherever she has to be, she's sure it's deep where there might be no way out.

From where she stands, the hall extends far beyond what she can see, and there are also arcs that lead to the left and to the right. There are a few surviving torches on the walls, so she walks to one and yanks it free of the vine grasp it's locked in, examining it for any possible use or damage.

 _I can manipulate simulations._

A fire comes to life on the crumbling tip of the torch and Tris' vicinity is lit.

 _I'm Divergent, even if I can't hear right now._

Her feet plow on, and she's moving again, deeper, deeper, deeper into the underground passage that seem more like halls built for an underground palace. The atmosphere feels like there could be a secret meeting going on somewhere in the deep crevices of the place, as if there might be some ancient chanting or summoning somewhere the light can't reach. It's solemn in the scariest way, and her heart beats heavily and steadily as if approaching the greatest enemy in the war.

She presses her back to the left wall, holding the torch on her right.

She takes a peek at the left hallway, where no one seems to be in. Not one inch of movement, nor a sliver of light. She looks to the right hallway just facing the left hallway entrance.

No one there either. No light at all.

She pushes off the wall and walks on in the left hall, where she sees nothing but rock walls and marble floors. Ahead of her, there seems to be nothing, though she can make out the faintest outlines of what might just be doors somewhere ahead of her on the walls.

Where will they lead?

And is she supposed to be in one of them?

* * *

"Caleb."

"Jeanine, may I talk to you for a moment?"

She turns to walk away from the spot she has claimed as her own toward the door wear Caleb steps away from, just far enough to let her through.

She steps out of the room and follows him just at the corner of the hall, there where he stops, then turns to face her.

A moment of silence passes.

"Caleb-"

"Jeanine, what exactly is going to trigger the electric shock in the serum?"

The serum was made with a unique electric component that can be triggered to heal what was damaged when Beatrice was awakened. Such an electric component needed an electric jolt just as strong as, if not stronger than, itself, if it were to be activated. With their manipulations of getting the resting electric shock to the part of Beatrice's brain that holds her hearing, the only thing left is to jolt it awake so the shock can activate and the serum may do its purpose.

Though for the brain to send electric waves strong enough to activate the serum's electric shock, Beatrice would need to burst with a strong emotion.

"As you know, we will need a strong emotion for that."

"And as per research, the strongest emotion in terms of electric waves is anger." He pauses, swallowing his breath. "What exactly is going to trigger that?"

In his eyes, Jeanine sees so many emotions battling at once. And although from the outside he appears calm and composed, Jeanine knows better than to settle for superficial.

He's worried, and scared, and anxious because that is his sister, the sister he thinks he betrayed, the sister that he played a part in nearly killing.

But, Jeanine wants to say, he also played a part in creating the serum that could save her. He also played a part in reviving her, no matter how small. He has done many things to hurt Beatrice, but Jeanine knows Beatrice enough to know that the many things Caleb has done can never parallel to Beatrice's love for him.

But it's not in Jeanine's place to tell him that. Beatrice has to tell him herself.

Otherwise, it will lose its meaning.

"I would like to hypothesize that it will come from her greatest cause of anger, but with her health condition and the many modifications to the serum, I cannot say for sure."

There is a short pause, and the business in the atmosphere in Erudite is thick and almost tangible.

"What do you think would be the greatest cause for her to be mad?"

A woman knows a woman best, doesn't she? Or rather, a person recovered from pain knows a person in pain the best.

"The thing that would hurt her the most."

They settle in silence, neither able to meet the other's eye.

Caleb begins to walk past her and she follows behind him, and she knows he's heading where Tobias and Peter are right now, where the hologram of Beatrice's simulation is displayed.

Just before they reach the door, though, they hear the ends of a conversation.

"Why have you never told anyone?" Peter.

"It's hard for me to talk about Trina even now." Tobias.

A girl with long, brown, braided hair, and bright blue eyes, in dull, gray Abnegation clothing. The gray never suited the girl, but the girl never had the chance to try on any other color.

 _Beatrice will never forgive me if she found out._


	10. Chapter 10

**My last three months of school were pretty hectic, and I got sick after. I'm sorry for how late this is.**

 **I do not own Divergent or any of the characters, but I do own this fanfic.**

* * *

Caleb and Jeanine join them as soon as he and Peter end their conversation. No matter what change Jeanine has gone through, he still will never find it in himself to trust her as much as he seems to trust Peter. He didn't even know what got into him, why he said anything to Peter.

But the damage has been done and there is nothing he can do about that now.

Peter stands on his right and Jeanine takes her place on his left. Caleb stays on Jeanine's other side, and their eyes are all trained to the hologram of Tris, there where she is walking down a narrow and dark hall, both walls lined with doors to one place or the other. Tris' footsteps echo in the hall, the only other sound present other than the crackling of the flame of the torch and her nearly inaudible breathing.

Just like he taught her. And yet, just like she taught herself altogether.

Tobias doesn't need to know all four of them are wondering many different things in those moments. To say they're wondering what could be behind those doors would be a lie. Still, their eyes are all trained to the hologram, watching Tris, wondering what will happen next.

If the serum will work or not.

While he watches Tris look from left to right, calculating, analytic, deep in thought, he thinks back to what happened after Caleb and Jeanine disappeared through the door.

 _"_ _You've been wondering what happened to Jeanine for a while, haven't you?"_

 _As always, Peter is a creep. The type of creep that just randomly pops up or speaks up, whenever he feels like it with his own intentions that he will never admit._

 _"_ _Who hasn't?"_

 _"_ _You didn't answer my question." Tobias adjusts himself to face Peter a bit more, just enough for him to see Peter's face entirely._

 _His shoulders square, Tobias replies. "I've been wondering. What do you want, Peter?"_

 _"_ _Nothing." Peter looks away from Tobias, fully to Tris' hologram now. "Just want to let you have your fill of secrets. I mean, everyone has a little bit of Erudite in them, don't they?"_

 _It unnerves Tobias unexplainably, the way Peter just acts. It's like the guy's got a built in sense that just annoys people on end. Still, Tobias keeps it to himself, because as Peter said, everyone has a little bit of Erudite in them. And Tobias will not pass as ignorant to his own self, to ignore that he is curious._

 _"_ _What do you know?"_

 _"_ _Ah, nothing. Just that," Tobias feels the atmosphere get a little heavier, though it has been light since Peter began to talk. "Just that what happened to Jeanine is a little less sudden than what everyone thinks."_

 _This takes Tobias by surprise. "What?" Now, he can't help but look Peter in the eye._

 _"_ _I was on patrol one night, the first night after Tris..." Peter seems more unsure what to call it than unsure if he should mention it. Typical._

 _"_ _Go on."_

 _"_ _Well yeah, the first night. The first night after your mother took over too._

 _"_ _So that night, I passed by Jeanine's room and I heard crying. I thought, like everyone else, that it would be impossible for Jeanine to cry. I mean, sure, she's a person and all, but it's more likely for her to be made of metal than made of skin._

 _"_ _So I decided to let it pass after a few seconds of slowly walking away from her door to keep listening, but the second time I passed, her door was open and the crying had stopped. Call me crazy or whatever you'd say, but I went in her room."_

 _"_ _You what?!" Tobias voice is well beneath a shout, and he whispers it, but his words still slightly echoes around the room._

 _"_ _I was curious." The mischievous glint comes back in Peter's eyes. "Besides, everyone has a little bit of Erudite in them, right?"_

 _Tobias nearly rolls his eyes from Peter's attempts to lighten the atmosphere, if that is what that idiot was going for._

 _"_ _But anyway, so I went in her room—her flat, really, since it has a kitchen and all that—and took a peek inside her bedroom where I saw her curled up on her bed facing away from the door. So she was really crying, okay. Thankfully, when I opened the door it didn't creak, and there were no alarms or anything, so I got in her room undetected. She was still asleep when I saw her face._

 _"_ _When I did see her face, I saw that she was hugging something close. It was a tablet, but she hugged it so tight that I didn't see a hint of light if it was even on. Anyway, other than the tablet, there was also a box of things that probably came from under Jeanine's bed. I never touched any of it, scared she might wake up, but I went near enough to see what it was."_

 _Tobias had a rough guess of what he is about to hear, and it didn't seem possible at all; he couldn't believe the words he's guessing will come out of Peter's mouth._

 _"_ _They were pictures, Four. Pictures of Tris. Even way back when Tris was still a baby."_

 _Peter is thankfully sensible enough to give Tobias time to let it sink in. He is already stunned at what Peter was insinuating, but for it to be true is a different story. A few seconds pass, and Tobias meets Peter's eyes, letting him know to continue._

 _"_ _I went back into her room. Out of her bedroom, into her living room. Then I saw a shelf there. When I pulled at one of the drawers, there was a notebook inside. I got it out then read it. It was a notebook filled with 'observations' about Tris. But it was more like a journal to me."_

 _Peter's eyes look even more direct into Tobias' now, Peter's jaw set._

 _"_ _Four, Jeanine has always loved Tris. She was just too blind to realize that."_

Even now, Tobias couldn't comprehend all of what Peter told him. He knows that the tablet is probably where all of the files are in, where clips and pictures and documents of Tris is in. He knows that without Peter telling him, because what else would the tablet be for? Why else would it be so important? Why else would Jeanine hold it so close?

Though, the fact that Jeanine may have been watching Tris her entire life is creepy. But seeing how highly Jeanine views Tris, it seems to make a little more sense, with the observation part. And maybe Jeanine couldn't help herself from caring for Tris, and only figured everything out too late. Maybe Jeanine didn't even accept it when she figured it out, and only finally realized what it is when Tris was gone.

Now, Tris is alive, and only maybe if the serum works.

On the hologram, Tris is shown to stop in her tracks, closing her eyes and seemingly sniffing the air.

* * *

Long after she separated from the main hall of this underground maze, all she could smell is the burning wood from the torch in her hand and, faintly, the scent of old water. It didn't do much that the entire place reeked in a way, since it's many centuries old and underground. Suddenly, she wishes to be back up on the ground surrounded by the scents of flowers and dew.

But no, she couldn't be swayed to leave. She has to find what she came here for no matter what it is she'll see.

So she keeps walking. But nothing seems to be out of place, nothing seems to be different.

Just as her thoughts give her an idea that she has to behind all these doors, that what she's looking for doesn't have a distinction, she catches a scent that wasn't present before.

She stops in her tracks, and closes her eyes. She lifts her chin and sniffs the air, as if to prove to herself what she smells is real.

Real, that is, in the sim. Because nothing in the sims are real.

The scent is coming from the second door on her right, which she confirms when the scent grows stronger just from her moving closer to the door. Without a doubt, she knows this scent, she knows it all too well. She doubts anything can ever make her forget it.

It is the scent that is distinctly and distinguishably Tobias.

She pushes the door open, anxious and excited to what she'll find, missing the real Tobias already.

* * *

Tris pushes the door open, and whatever she's expecting to be beyond that door, Tobias knows Tris has been anticipating for a while now.

Tobias wishes it's him.

 _They've been in unbreakable silence for a while now. Peter and him._

 _"_ _There was also something else I found there." Peter speaks again._

 _"_ _What?"_

 _"_ _Between two random books on her shelf, Jeanine had a picture of a girl. She had long, brown braided hair, and she wore an Abnegation dress. She had bright blue eyes. And, for a Stiff, she had a really nice smile."_

 _Could it be who he thinks it is?_

 _"_ _The girl was with your mother, too." Peter pauses, most likely for his own interests, but Tobias is glad about it. "Don't ask me how I know Evelyn's your mother. It's something that's circulated for quite a while now."_

 _Peter and his way of getting information._

 _"_ _So, do you know who she is?"_

 _There's a silence that Tobias is lost in, like how that memory is lost in time somehow._

 _"_ _She's my elder sister. Her name is Katrina Eaton."_

 _Tobias can sense what Peter wants to say, but isn't saying. Tobias nearly prepares himself to tell the whole story, no matter what's going to happen to him, but Peter asks him something else._

 _"_ _Why have you never told anyone?"_

 _Because he's been trying to forget. Because he already did. Because-_

 _"_ _It's hard for me to talk about Trina even now."_

 _The door to the observation room slides open, and in comes Caleb and Jeanine._

On the other side of the door Tris opens, there he is, Tobias Eaton, in all his glory.

Except he's in bed, on top of a girl that can't be seen from how his back hides her.

* * *

At the sight, Tris feels like she's going to explode. She knows it's a sim, but how dare he, how dare he do this to her, after all they've been through, after all the promises, after all the silences that they've shared and that they promised to keep between and for each other only.

She can't believe him, even if this is just a sim. She can't believe that he could do this to her.

As if to prove her point, or to show her he doesn't even care if she's in the room or not, he slides his body closer to the woman's beneath him, and finally, the woman's face is revealed. But her face is not familiar to Tris, so she doesn't care about the woman.

In fact, the woman doesn't matter. What matters is that Tobias Eaton had betrayed her. And the sheer thought made her blood boil on end.

* * *

 **For the next chapter, I will try to post it this week. If not this week, next week. :)**

 **\- SilverShortyyy**


	11. Chapter 11

The girl has brown hair, and brown eyes. Her body's stiff now, not languidly moving against Tobias'.

The girl moves her mouth to say something, and it just infuriates Tris more to see that they can hear, they can speak and hear their own voice, and she can't. It's like they're mocking her, taunting her, angering her and thinking she can't fight back.

Finally, Tobias looks over to her, to Tris, to the girl who he promised he would never betray. 'Never' seems to be a longshot, especially with how Tris sees it. Tobias moves his mouth, and Tris can very much see herself ripping that mouth out of his face. Tobias pushes off the girl, and gets out of bed, and Tris spares herself the nuisance of knowing if he's completely naked or not, because his eyes don't even show a bit of regret, not a hint of begging for forgiveness, because his look is solid, complete, mock innocence.

He moves to hold her arm. His hand moves to grasp her own, and like hell would she let that happen.

He says her name, she knows he does, because she knows how her name looks like on his lips. She yanks her arm away, as if she came in contact with hot iron, even without him so much as touching her. She hates how she still remembers how he says her name, how such a traitor lets her name fall out of his lips.

"No!" She tries to say, but she doesn't know how it sounds like. She feels tears streaming down her face, but they can so much as boil with how much rage she's feeling, with how much anger she feels boiling in her veins. "You have no right to touch me, you hear me?!"

He says her name again, and it makes her so pissed, so angry, because it's like she's mocking her even more. As if letting her find him in bed with another girl isn't enough pain already.

"Just shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up, and get the hell away from me!" She doesn't know how it comes out, and she doesn't care, because all she wants is for him to die, for him to suffer, because he has no right to face her when he can't even apologize properly to his deaf girlfriend.

All she can hear is the high-frequency noise that she's been hearing ever since she was in the Erudite lab. And if anything, she thinks it got even louder, even squeakier and more annoying and-

Her eyes are closed, and the tears are streaming down her face. Curse her body for betraying her, curse that girl in bed with Tobias, curse Tobias, curse the fact that she still loves him, that she still _cares_ about him, that she still wants to take him back.

Curse her weak heart. Curse it all!

She doesn't know how it comes out, but she feels her throat rumble, she feels her lungs pushing, and she knows she's shouting. She can taste the salty tears coming into her mouth, she can feel her heart breaking as if Tobias has her heart in his hands and is literally tearing it apart, and she can feel pain, pain, so much pain, and it's unbearable, it's beyond unbearable, and she wishes she could just die.

It makes her so angry. It makes her so furious, but all she can feel herself do is curl up into a ball and cry.

Because maybe, this way, she can keep herself together. Even if, like Tobias and his promises, it's a longshot.

* * *

His jaw is dropped down, slack on his face. He can't feel anything, can't see anything, can't hear anything else.

It's not real, it's just a sim. Then why does he feel so stupid, so regretful, so angry?

He takes a deep breath in, and breathes out, a strong exhale. He runs his hand through his hair, and he tries to look away, tries not to see Tris crumpled on the floor and curled into herself, tears streaming down her face endlessly. He tries to block out her sobs and cries and her _pain_ that he inflicted, whether or not that was him.

It's just a sim. It's not real.

It's just Tris' imagination.

Still, he feels like it's he who did it, he, the one named Tobias Eaton, who was in that bed with that girl and betrayed Tris.

But it's just a sim, right? It's supposed to just be a test, but it feels like horror all the way.

No matter how hard he tries, no matter if he puts his hands on his ears or not, Tris' sobs prevail among any other sound around him, and it makes him think of the girl he couldn't keep from coming here that night, the girl that could be beside him and fighting and not having to go through this whole ordeal instead of seeing her greatest fear come to life and pierce through her like a bullet through her heart.

But this pain, this horrible thing that Tris is feeling, Tobias is sure a bullet to the heart would feel better.

In those moments, he feels like he's alive but dead. Dead inside, hollow and empty, while he hears her crying even harder.

It reminds him of himself, all the way back when he lost his sister.

 _"_ _Ragh!" Tobias buries his face on the sheets of his bed, his fingers tangled in his hair that's drenched in sweat, and maybe tears and drool, but he can't find himself to care. "Agh!"_

 _"_ _Will you keep quiet, you noisy child?!" His father shouts as the door slams open._

 _Slowly, he looks up, his cries silenced. He trembles when he looks up, and when he meets his father's eyes it's like coming face to face with a killer, a murderer, and by the belt hanging from his father's fist, he doesn't feel a difference._

 _Gone is the soft and gentle expression of the father he used to know, gone is any proof that the father he knew ever existed, and instead there is a monster there, a person who looks like he isn't even human._

 _"_ _I said keep quiet!" His father cracks the whip, slams the belt on a nearby something, but Tobias can't tear his gaze away from the death glare of Marcus Eaton._

 _Just then does Tobias realize the softest of his sobs, and tries to stop it. He tries, and when the silence comes and he doesn't sniff again, Marcus steps close to him and he tries to stay put, but his body pushes him further back until his back collides with the wall._

 _Marcus is so close, his breath is hovering on Tobias' face._

 _"_ _If you so much as let another cry come out of that little mouth of yours, I will punish you with this belt. Is that clear?"_

 _Tobias nods, fear keeping him frozen and unable to think._

 _"_ _And your sister is not a topic we may discuss. She is out of bounds. Clear?"_

 _Tobias nods again, quicker this time, and he waits for what feels like an eternity until finally, Marcus steps out of his room and closes the door._

Tris' crying bombards his hearing and proves that it can't be ignored. When he finally forces himself to come out of his shell and look back to the hologram, he chances a glance at Jeanine, whose lips are pursed and whose eyes are trained down.

When the light hits her eyes, he sees it glisten, and he knows she's keeping herself together, so he forces himself to do the same.

With pain and a deep breath, he looks back to the screen, where Tris is still crumpled on the ground, crying.

* * *

Tris sees nothing but the darkness behind her eyelids, smells nothing but the scent of her skin that she deeply buries herself in, tastes nothing but the tears that stream unceasingly from her eyes, and feels nothing but the sting of her cheeks and the never-ending flow of her tears. She shuts her eyes so tightly, as if the tighter she closes her eyes, the more her tears will be kept in, the more they might stop flowing. She shuts her eyes close, as if that could force out the infuriating image she had seen.

Curse Tobias Eaton. Curse him for everything he ever said, all the lies he told her. Curse that liar.

Curling deeper into herself, Tris thought she felt her heart ripping itself away from her completely, as if someone literally buried their hand in her chest and severed her heart's connections to all the veins and arteries it's connected to. She feels as if someone actually broke through her ribs and is pulling her heart out, painfully, in the slowest, most agonizing pace possible, while crushing it just as brutally.

It's so painful. And it makes her furious that he still has this effect on her, that after he betrayed her like that he still had a hold on her enough so that it feels like he's killing her. It angers her that she can't even bring herself to stand back up, to face him and punch him and just give him what he deserves, and it angers her that he makes her so weak, that even her strong will fades at his gaze.

Curse that Tobias.

Tris wonders what made her love him at all.

He never really cared about her, did he? He was always just guarding her as if she was a puppy, as if she didn't know how to take care of herself, and curse her for actually submitting to that. Oh how she hated herself for letting him do that to her! She should never have become Dauntless, or rather, she should have chosen someone else to keep her eyes on, someone else who wouldn't see her as a _girl_ , someone to protect, someone to shield from danger, someone to keep from pain and loss and everything.

How could she have been so blind? And that would be saying something: she's literally deaf, but she seems to have been blind as well.

To some extent, she didn't even know the difference between what is and isn't real anymore. Either way, she couldn't make herself care. So she just curls deeper into herself if it's even possible, as if it can keep her from bursting, because she sure as hell feels like there's nothing left for her but to explode and implode all at the same time. Into her inevitable oblivion.

She never notices how the sound of her sobs infiltrate her ears, how she can hear the not so subtle hum of machines, how she can hear her clothes brushing the floor, and she never pays attention to the click of a pair of heels until a soft voice speaks, and she finds herself looking up from her little ball of comfort into watery gray eyes.

* * *

"Beatrice." A voice says from the hologram while Beatrice lifts her head and stares at the person who owns the voice.

Beatrice sits on the floor of where they had first met—in the office of the machine everyone knew as Jeanine Matthews—staring up with her puffy red eyes and tear-stained cheeks to the woman who stood a few feet away from her. A woman who all Jeanine can say, looks exactly like her before she 'lost' Beatrice.

The girl's eyes widen. Her mouth is agape and body struggles to keep herself from shaking. The girl pushes herself enough so she can sit upright and bring her hands to her mouth, a fresh wave of tears threatening to spill from her eyes. To Jeanine's surprise, though maybe the changed look in Beatrice's eyes are enough to explain it, the tears spill and yet Beatrice does not collapse in a fit of sobs as she had, and when the girl closes her eyes and finally lowers her hands to hold herself upright, on Beatrice's lips is a smile.

The Jeanine in the simulation rounds the glass table over to Beatrice, and she's wearing a soft, bright smile as she crouches beside Beatrice and put an arm around the girl's shoulders. The blue clad woman rests her cheek on the girl's head, whispering words they all wanted to hear, especially Jeanine who stands frozen, unable to believe what it all could mean.

"Yes Beatrice, you can hear again."

From the tips of her vision, she could nearly see Peter smirking smugly before exiting the room over to the laboratory, either to assist the scientists or to leave her, Tobias, and Caleb alone, she didn't know.

* * *

 **Thank you for waiting, and I will upload the next chapter within this month or the next. :)**


	12. Chapter 12

**Sorry for the long wait! Here's the last chapter of The One!**

* * *

The next few seconds feel like long minutes for Tris. What everyone would tell her to be just three or five seconds feels like full half an hour for her.

The last thing she remembers was closing her eyes and reveling in the fact that yes, she can hear again, she can hear her sobs and she can feel the uncontrollable smile slithering itself onto her face, she can hear the way her clothes brush against each other, she can hear and everything just sounds way better than the high-pitched noise that plagued her ears once before. She remembers being slumped on the ground, curling into herself, sobbing because this happiness is the type that is buried deep in the heart, enough to push tears up to the surface. She remembers being so absorbed in that moment, then it happens.

It's like being shocked with a taser, an ultimate paralysis that renders an entire body useless and out of control. She tries to breathe, suck a breath in and feel it in her lungs, but nothing in her body is responding to her and she begins to notice the lack of a heartbeat hammering in her ear. The panic starts to surface then, because what should she do, what will she do, what can she do now? It feels like minutes before her body goes slack, and even without a heartbeat or a breath, she feels herself and she knows she's alive.

Then for so long, it's like she's just floating in darkness. It takes a while for her to absorb her surroundings and see the shards of what she'd guess to be the sim she had been immersed in. Time drags on as she floats in the space of a shattered reality and a finished sim, and it's like being alive but not really. She feels like she has no body, like she is only a soul, and she feels no heart beating through her at all.

Until one, strong beat returns to her, and life floods back into her. Eyes closed, she feels the beat of her heart at her fingertips, the blood rushing in her veins up and down her arms, can feel the cold steel of the table under her and the way a few of her hair strands tickle the ends of her face. She can smell the scent of a laboratory, and the scent of one person's rose perfume and another scent of another person's dandruff-free shampoo. She can smell a scent that oddly reminds her of Peter, and she can taste her dry mouth. Most of all, she can hear the hustle and bustle of the scientists around her, the flipping of paper and the swishing of clothes. She can hear the opening of the distant door and the momentary lessening of voices, and she can hear who she knew would be Peter take his place somewhere to her right. She can hear, and it's not just the high pitched noise anymore, and she hears Peter when he speaks to her.

"Welcome back, Stiff." In that moment, she opens her eyes that get blinded for a while in the bright whiteness of the lab. Her head twists to look over at where Peter stands, leaning on a nearby counter and looking down at Tris lying down on the examination table.

"Hi Peter."

* * *

In the observation room where the hologram has been turned off and all that there is in front of them is an empty room with the lights turned off, the deafening silence takes place of what used to be the sounds of Beatrice Prior and her simulation. In the room where Jeanine, Caleb, and Tobias stay in, the only voices that can be heard are the voices in the lab hustling and bustling to take care of Tris at her post-sim state. None of the three have spoken a word, neither have any of them uttered any kind of sound. They all stand, paralyzed, especially Jeanine and Tobias.

Then Caleb's breath fills the silence. As if breaking out of his trance, he jogs over to the lab door, unable to keep himself and his excitement on a leash. He knows Tris may not forgive him yet, knows that Tris may still hate him for siding with Erudite and doing the then Jeanine Matthews' bidding. Still, Caleb can't help but run over to Tris, to the sister he's always had and always loved.

The lab door opens and he steps inside, and when it closes, the observation room is overcome with silence.

Jeanine's eyes still stare at where the hologram used to be, eyes unbelieving and mouth slightly agape. The sim worked. Her hastily made sim worked. And Beatrice is still alive and can hear again and she _saved Beatrice Prior._ She looks like she couldn't believe this is reality, as if she expects some horrible thing to relapse because she knows she deserves it, she knows she deserves to be given the worst and to live in complete and utter misery after all she's done. She stares at where the hologram had been, not believing most especially that she is the one who appeared in the end, her voice the first voice Beatrice heard.

And she knows how the sim works. Jeanine knows how the sim she made works.

And Jeanine knows that nearly everything that appears in a sim is manipulated, though subconsciously, by the person the sim was injected into.

Tobias - no, Four - looks no different than how he always does. His face is stoic, emotionless, as if he feels nothing in response to what had just happened. His eyes look straight ahead, off into the empty, lightless room beyond the pane of glass in front of them, not shocked or surprised or unbelieving. His face shows no reaction, and yet his eyes shows so much if just looked into.

In his eyes there is the tiniest bit of tears, a slight glassy shine that could only be seen after a double take. Behind the glassy exterior there is relief, and a little bit of fear, and a million other emotions that cannot be shifted through, that are like hair strands stuck together by dried sweat. He stands there with feet and shoulders square, looking off into the room in front of him, and yet it looks like he looks farther beyond the wall of the room behind the pane of glass.

Jeanine and Four stand side by side, a few inches separating them, the room so big yet so small at the same time. Jeanine is small in the room with a dark floor and dark walls and a dark ceiling, her eyes laying bare her emotions for anyone to see. Four, beside her, is like a rock standing still and rock. His eyes don't give too much away, like a knight with his armor up, and in the room he looks strong, he looks big, he looks like a pillar that won't drop no matter how much damage is dealt to him.

Then the door to the lab opens and the observation room fills with a scent that is distinctly Tris.

* * *

When she steps out of the lab (and oh does Tris enjoy hearing the _schwoo_ of the automatic door), Jeanine and Tobias' heads twist to look at her, both pairs of eyes trained to her own.

For a second, she thinks she's overwhelmed. Because Tobias is right there and she misses him but she hates him though she only hates him for what he did in the sim, which he didn't do at all. Then Jeanine's also there who she hasn't quite decided how to feel about, because she likes the way Jeanine's lips had warmed her sticky skin, likes the sweetness and softness of Jeanine's voice when she sang. Tris likes Jeanine's soft touches, and those watery gray eyes that are so uniquely Jeanine Matthews. For a second, Tris is overwhelmed by everything, but just as quickly, the wave of thoughts goes away.

"Tris."

His name is on her tongue, but a different one rolls off, and it feels just right when she says not his real name but his alias.

"Four."

She relishes the way her name sounds on his tongue, the way he says her name like a holy mantra. She revels in the way his arms feel around her small frame, enveloping her enough to carry her off her feet. She bathes in his intoxicating scent that she breathes in while he holds her in his arms, and everything with him just feels so easy and so right.

When he puts her down, his eyes are raw, with no walls up and all his armor down. When she looks into his eyes with her feet on the floor, she sees how he lays his soul down for her to see, sees how he stands naked in front of her, no facades and no masks. And she loves him, loves him so much.

Besides, it was just a sim. None of it was real. This, the way his hand fits snugly at the small of her back, _this_ is real.

"Beatrice." Jeanine's voice breaks into her as quickly as Four's touch did.

"Jeanine." Tris doesn't know if she sounds too hopeful, or if she should have more venom in her voice, but when she turns to Jeanine she can't help all the thoughts that smash into her, she can't help how she feels at the sight of Jeanine Matthews, scared and surprised and a tiny bit happy, just inches away from her. "Thank you."

And Jeanine doesn't expect it, with the way her eyes widen before they aren't wide anymore, especially with how bright Tris smiles at her.

"You're welcome, Beatrice." Jeanine replies in such a soft voice, that everyone in the room is actually surprised that Jeanine Matthews can speak at such a soft and kind way.

Everyone, that is, except Beatrice Prior. She's heard Jeanine like this before, and it sounds like music to her ears, and it makes her smile.

Suddenly Tobias' touch isn't as important as Tris though it to be.

The inches between them lessen and lessen as Tris walks over to Jeanine, and Jeanine looks unbelieving that any of this is really happening and it tears a bit at Tris' heart that Jeanine could think that she doesn't deserve anything good. quicker this time, Tris closes the inches between them until she's standing in front of Jeanine.

Their eyes lock, and the fear fades away from Jeanine's watery gray eyes.

"Hi."

"Hi."

In that moment, Jeanine knew she had not lost the One.

* * *

 **The end. Thank you for being patient and thank you for reading!**


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